stitches

Also - completely disagree with the people who are saying Shane needs to be more conservative - NO! This is NOT the lesson he should learn from those 4th downs. We need better execution and better talent.

I thought the game looked even. The difference - their playmakers made plays... our playmakers fumbled or are no show... Some day Ballard will learn that even great QBs need playmaking talent to emphasize their abilities.

Well, that tweet will surely make his coach and teammates trust him more...

Anthony Richardson is younger than both Caleb Williams and Drake Maye.

That's a very good pick... it's insane how he caught 13 TDs while playing like 50% of the snaps.

I just came here to post this. At this point it qualifies as too good to be true, I think. AR has been exemplary when it comes to attitude and work ethic in this pre-season. I really really hope he becomes really good. I don't think I've ever wanted a player to be great more than I do with Richardson now.

It's because they are fans of the team first and the players second. When a player takes a stance that will hurt the team or hinder them from building a stronger roster, it's only natural for the fans to take the side of management who are the ones protecting the interest of the team at that point.

1. Who is MOST to blame for this contract standoff? I think Taylor and Kawa have absolutely picked to worst possible strategy to get paid. My stance is still that the best chance he had to get paid was from the Colts and now he's almost certainly eliminated that option for himself. I think the Colts have overall a reasonable stance and have handled this thing MUCH better than Taylor and his agent. 2. Will Taylor play any games for the Colts this season? I think so. I think he will play some games and then fake another injury and hope we don't franchise tag him next off-season. Doubt this goes his way either. 3. Has local Indy media covered this standoff effectively? No... but that's not anything new. I think there were questions that had to be asked early during this whole ordeal that were not asked. And now I think they keep trying to both-sides this thing when the two sides are really not on the same footing. With that said - the national media has been even worse and more toxic. 4. Should the Colts re-sign Taylor, trade him, or tag him? I thought the Colts should trade him before this whole thing and I still think they should trade him. But that's not to say they should just gift him to whoever gives you a bag of chips for him. If we get 2nd and 3d IMO we should trade him. 5. How has this contract standoff influenced your opinion of Colts' management? I don't think it really has changed my opinion much. Ballard has been professional and solid overall. Steichen has refused to comment, which I would have done too in his place. Irsay is... Irsay... his heart is in the right place and AGAIN... technically he's right about what he said. BUT with that said... he lacks some self-control and self-awareness and doesn't know when him saying the truth out loud is not in his or the team's best interest. This should have been just the next contract dispute alongside Bosa, Chris Jones, Brian Burns, etc... and instead it has turned into a public %show... 6. How has this contract standoff influenced your opinion of Taylor? This seemed totally out of character for Taylor so I would be lying if I said this didn't influence my opinion of him in a negative way, but I don't feel super strongly about it. Some people online have a lot of venom for Taylor right now and I can't muster that. I'm disappointed in how he's handled it, but not to the point to wish any ill on him. He wants to get paid, I can understand that... it's just... he really did make bad choice after bad choice this summer starting from saying how he is good playing on his contract just 3 months ago to hiring that disaster of an agent, to... liking childish tweets, etc... Oh well... I think Irsay is ultimately right. Some day Jonathan Taylor won't be a Colt anymore and quite honestly... I don't think this will make or break this franchise. We have much more important things going on on this roster than whether Jonathan Taylor plays or not... (and I think it's wild that journalists and analysts don't seem to get that... the scarcity of money for RBs have not yet driven the point... lets hope in a few years they will learn - RBs are very fun to watch but also they are the most replaceable and one of the least important positions for winning). We will survive!

Don't quote me on this one but I think it was during one of the joint practices...

Darius Slay on Colts joint practice, Anthony Richardson, and pre-season game(starts talking about it at about 3:17):

Try to get it signed by Anthony Richardson?

I think he was OC and playcaller for Herbert too... agreed on Richardson being the biggest and most important piece. Most of it will depends on him at the end of the day.

It's really hard to project IMO. I would expect our offense to closely mirror what Steichen did with Hurts in Philly. It's interesting that both in 2021 and 2022 they had very similar pass% - 50.26% and 50.13%. Now... there is one big problem with that assumption - Philly was a winning team and played with the lead in a lot of those games, which increases artificially the run %. But still... I would expect us to be relatively high % running team(probably 47-50% run) with the QB being big part of the running game. Hurts passed 30 times a game in 2021 and 31 times a game in 2022. The tricky part of projecting the pure number for Richardson comes from the difference in quality of both the offenses and the defenses of the Colts and the Eagles. Meaning - their defense was better than ours is likely to be, thus they were stopping drives quicker on D and their offense was better than ours is likely to be so they extended drives more than we will. So... in general the number will be depressed for us IMO. Just how bad are we going to be? Chicago bad from last year? They had 22 attempts per game... (~50 total offensive snaps per game) or are we going to be like Philly(31 attempts, or about 62 total offensive snaps per game). Lets say we are somewhere in between. Lets say we get 27 passing attempts per game. Hurts had about 12 yards per completion in both 2021 and 2022. Lets assume Richardson will have similar number in similar offense(although I wouldn't surprised if it was lower because our offensive weapons are tiers below Eagles). If we assume he completes about 55% of his attempts... 27*0.55*12 =~ 178 yards per game. Extrapolate over 17 games... and you get about 3000 yards. If you think he will be lower than 12 yards per completion ... lets say 11(which is the average for the league)... it goes down to about 2780.. So yeah... it's not easy to project. Some of it will depend on how good the team is in general. Some of it will depend on how good our weapons are. And of course - a ton of it will depend on Richardson himself. About his running game - I expect him to be one of the most devastating rushing weapons in the league, especially in short yardage and goal line situations. That's why I wrote in my expectations that I expect 800 rushing yards and 10 rushing TDs. I guess we will see ...

Some thoughts from college football analysts and fans after they watched Florida's offense without Richardson: There are tons and tons more...

1. Jaylon Jones? I cannot ignore the glowing review Ballard gave him. 2. Alec Pierce... I still think he's the one set up to benefit the most from Richardson. He still needs to do it and stop dropping the ball, but... that's still my answer. 3. Nick Cross... he seems to have had a good off-season and is poised to break out.

I guess our biggest differences in expectations are how much he will be passing and TD/INT ratio. I expect him to run more and have more trouble with the pass... but I do expect him to be really successful running the ball. Your projection seems much more well rounded. I actually would expect those type of stats(your projection) for year 2 if he has my projection type year 1.

Jalen Hurts last season. Almost MVP 3700 passing yards(15 games) 22 TDs 6 INT 760 rushing yards, 13TDs Just for some context...

AR to JT:

He also used to meet with the media after the draft and have a film session with them explaining why they drafted the players they drafted. I was really excited to hear about their thought processes in more detail about Richardson, but for the first time this year he decided not to do it... Agreed with @RollerColt and you though... we will probably not much access this year. I kind of expect him to not have a presser until January... unless something out of the ordinary happens(we trade Taylor or something of the sort).

damn, you have high expectations Rookie QBs rarely have positive TD-INT ratio and you have him at +8 That would be a fantastic season IMO.

2800 passing yards... 55% completion 15TD/17INT 800 yards rushing, 10 rushing TDs

Eventually that's where he will end up if his development progresses the way it should. But right now the Colts need him to run for the good of this offense and for the good of his development as a passer too...

AR's ability to run will open up easier passes for AR, not whoever is lined up next to him. Sure, JT might be more efficient and explosive than Moss for example, but in the grand scheme of things, the driver of this offense is the mobile QB.