Do you see any progress with Richardson?

[csmopar]

35 minutes ago, CR91 said:

Imo, the coaches are failing AR by making him do something that I just don't think he can do right now in his career which is sit in the pocket and make throws. Also once again very little plays to the TEs. Why are we taking away easy throws for AR to make to atleast build his confidence and sustain drives

I agree but I also don’t agree. 
 

I agree about the TEs, that part doesn’t make sense to me. We definitely should be getting them involved 

 

I disagree about the forcing him to be a pocket passer. While I think it’ll look rough this year, IF this works and he improves even 50 percent on his pocket passing ability, while maintaining his mobility and that threat, he could be as deadly as Mahomes is. 

[Dark Superman]

It'll probably make more sense to ask this question after the season is over. Three weeks into the season is way too soon.

[CR91]

4 minutes ago, csmopar said:

I agree but I also don’t agree. 
 

I agree about the TEs, that part doesn’t make sense to me.

 

I disagree about the forcing him to be a pocket passer. While I think it’ll look rough this year, IF this works and he improves even 50 percent on his pocket passing ability, while maintaining his mobility and that threat, he could be as deadly as Mahomes is. 

 

I still think the coaches could make things easier for AR while he's still learning how to play QB

[csmopar]

2 minutes ago, CR91 said:

 

I still think the coaches could make things easier for AR while he's still learning how to play QB

I think they could but I wonder if that’s not the entire point. They seem entirely fine with the mistakes and such. One thing I noticed, every missed throw or int today, AR had a coach with a tablet right there as soon as he sat down. They’re letting him make his mistakes, and showing them right to him. Then they walk away and let him be. They teach and let it go and not harp on it. With a guy like AR, I think that’s the right path

[CR91]

11 minutes ago, csmopar said:

I think they could but I wonder if that’s not the entire point. They seem entirely fine with the mistakes and such. One thing I noticed, every missed throw or int today, AR had a coach with a tablet right there as soon as he sat down. They’re letting him make his mistakes, and showing them right to him. Then they walk away and let him be. They teach and let it go and not harp on it. With a guy like AR, I think that’s the right path

 

I can agree with that

[bestQBever]

To me, this is still his rookie year. When you are rehabbing an injury, you are not getting better at football. He has basically played 7 NFL games with 0 offseason to work on the things we KNEW he needed to work on (hence why he was considered a project QB). I will reserve my judgement for him next year given he has a chance at a healthy offseason. 

[Solid84]

Honestly no, but then I didn’t expect to see any progress yet either. He basically lost an entire season and offseason because of injury. 
 

I’ll be more concerned if there’s no progress next season. 
 

What I think is much more of a concern this season is that Steichen’s playcalling seems to have regressed badly. I expected a vastly different offense than what we’re playing and I don’t think Steichen is helping AR at all. 

[bluephantom87]

1 hour ago, #12. said:

 

Absolutely.  At the beginning of last year, he looked better than this.  He looked confident and somewhat accurate.  He currently looks like the worst starting QB in the league. 

 

He can throw an occasional bomb?  NFL history is littered with inaccurate QBs who could connect on an occasional bomb.  If you can’t put together consistent drives, it doesn't mean anything.  It will never be enough.

 

Stream some high school football from Friday night.  He is missing throws that high school QBs routinely make.  

 

One progress I see is that he's finishing games so that's a step. The shoulder surgery and offseason rehab has definitely set him back for a raw guy who needs all the reps he can get. It was reported that AR has a total of 30 something starts at qb INCLUDING hs. Think about that most have that in high school alone. Caleb Williams is the 2nd youngest starting qb in the league and had 33 starts in college alone while winning a Heisman trophy. AR is the youngest starting qb in the league at just 22 but has extreme talent and natural gifts that have to be developed.

 

I think the staff is doing him a disservice by taking away the threat of his legs (see Lamar) because he is not a pocket passer. I think AR needs a go to TE and the Colts need to rely on the run more with JT until AR catches up from his lost rehab time. Give him some easy short throws to build his confidence before he starts throwing into coverage take the Josh Allen approach.

 

The biggest problem is that Ballard chose a project in AR instead of moving up to snag the polished CJ Stroud. Most teams move up to get their franchise guy unless they already have the number one pick overall. The reason why it's problem is that the fan base is starting to get restless and the thought of another few years of unfulfilled promise seems discouraging.

 

Once Ballard chose to sit pat AR was the right choice over the awful Will Levis who was a strong possibility if not for Shane according to Shefty and Will's people. Bottom line is that this will take time. Is the overall team good enough to make a push while AR goes through his growing pains to reach his full potential? I doubt it because Ballard's tenure has been spun in mediocrity at best.

 

[Mikemccoy84]

I’m glad our team didn’t have the bears body language. At least they were encouraging AR on his mistakes. Williams on the other seemed like he is already on the hot seat and teammates are getting tired of it.

[cbear]

2 hours ago, ColtStrong2013 said:

A lot of people on this forum said the 4 games he played last year wasn’t enough of a sample size to know much about him, so why would 3 games be sufficient this season to judge if he’s progressing? I’ll continue watching each week and hoping we see growth over the course of the season. A long way to go this season, a lot of football to be played. 
 

I’ll tell you where he is very obviously progressing- playing full games. That shouldn’t be understated, given it was the largest concern for many on here. I believe in AR to keep putting the work in to get better. He’s a good dude, he’ll bust his butt for this team. 

 

Do people really think his progression should be a graph line going steadily upward? Really? Seven games. It's going to be up and down. Two steps forward, one step back. Sometines, one step forward, three steps back. Especially for a guy who is about as raw as they come. Fans better expect it. 

[tfunky14]

None of us are experts or a NFL coach.  

Can he play better, absolutely but we have no grain of salt to say he has or not improved. 

[lollygagger8]

Give him the rest of the year before we make too much judgement on progress. Dude is super young and still figuring it out.  

 

I think his footwork is poor, and he relies on his rocket launcher arm to save him w/o thinking about mechanics. When he's under pressure is when he resorts to kind of like a backyard ball approach. 

 

I think the WR's have issue on trying to catch his fastballs, so now he's trying to throw with "touch" and underthrowing quite a bit. Though there have been a lot of dropped passes by the WR's for sure. 

 

All these wildly sailing balls and inaccurate throws are what's concerning. Hopefully it's all correctable. (I think it is?)

 

[stitches]

I still think the inaccuracies and the sailing of his throws is masking the progress he's made as a QB. I think decision-making-wise and when it comes to reading the defense, he's on a very good trajectory. He looks like a QB who knows what he's doing, who knows where he needs to go with the ball. He probably needs to work on his timing with the receivers a bit and he needs to be a bit quicker with his decisions at times, but overall those are things a young QB will naturally get better at with time and experience.

 

Just take a moment and think about it - it feels like almost every single one of his worst looking throws are throws where he went through his progression, read the defense and made the right decision. Just the throws themselves were off. Some of them WAY OFF. 

 

Now don't get me wrong, at some point he will need to start hitting those throws because at the end of the day what's the point of reading the defense and making the right decision if you sail the ball 5 yards over the receiver's head? If he doesn't get better at that, he will bust, because no team will have the patience for a vet QB who can't hit those type of throws with any consistency. I really hope the coaching staff is working with him on it and we see some progress by the end of the season.

[4daUColts]

10 hours ago, Smonroe said:

Sorry, I disagree.  You may not see leaps and bounds each game, but you should see improvement.  
 

The interceptions were worse today than last week.  He’s still missing wide open receivers.  
 

I’m hoping it’s rust (and I won’t start again about wth didn’t they play him in the preseason).  He looked so good last season, I expected more now.  

I expected more too, good post

[DavePSL]

We are going to find out quick because it's a copy cat league. I will be shocked if pitt doesn't load up the box and force AR to throw right away . After seeing that on tape, the Steelerers know what to do and what worries me is SS is a guy who just defaults to the opposite adjustment and force the Throws. Every team moving forward will make the Colts throw first until AR proves them wrong. The next few weeks will be very telling for AR and the passing game and SS. The only thing that is keeping defenses somehwat honest is the big play strikes but if I'm a defense, i'll take that chance to take JT out of the game.

[2006Coltsbestever]

9 hours ago, ShuteAt168 said:

49 percent completion rate, 6 picks and 3 int. As I’ve said, I want him to succeed because the alternative is very bad news for the franchise, but those are ugly numbers. 

3 games doesn't define a career and I thought vs the Texans he looked good. He needs to run more, we aren't using him right and that is on Shane.

[2006Coltsbestever]

I do know this, AR is playing better than Levis so to the people that wanted Levis have no room to talk at all.

[MikeCurtis]

I think we have to run him a bit more, while he works on his accuracy

 

 

[2006Coltsbestever]

1 minute ago, MikeCurtis said:

I think we have to run him a bit more, while he works on his accuracy

 

 

I agree. You can't play in fear on maybe getting injured. It looks like to me that Shane is trying to make him a pocket passer, that isn't his game. He throws better on the run and and should run it more but that is JMO.

[chad72]

The most important thing is that AR doesn’t develop bad habits with his footwork or his other mechanics that it takes a lot of time to coach it out of him. That’s my biggest concern, that it might take another off season to get things rectified with his mechanics.

[RollerColt]

It's actually a wild perspective when I think about it... 

 

I'm my limited time of playing this unforgiving game, I actually have more playing experience from high school and early college compared to him. 

[BeanDiasucci]

1 hour ago, 2006Coltsbestever said:

I do know this, AR is playing better than Levis so to the people that wanted Levis have no room to talk at all.

It's not that clear on who is playing better, is it? 

 

Richardson 49.3% completions, 583 yards, 3 TDs, 6 INTs, 55.9 rating

Levis 68.1% completions, 579 yards, 4 TDs, 5 INTs, 76.5 rating 

 

The big difference is that Richardson is 22 and Levis is 25. 

[BeanDiasucci]

1 minute ago, BeanDiasucci said:

 

 

[RollerColt]

26 minutes ago, BeanDiasucci said:

It's not that clear on who is playing better, is it? 

 

Richardson 49.3% completions, 583 yards, 3 TDs, 6 INTs, 55.9 rating

Levis 68.1% completions, 579 yards, 4 TDs, 5 INTs, 76.5 rating 

 

The big difference is that Richardson is 22 and Levis is 25. 

Levis doesn't seem to be listening to Callahan at all... 

 

That guy went from a literal sponge of taking in knowledge with Joe Burrow, to a metaphorical brick wall in Levis. 

[RollerColt]

For the record, I really get and understand where some of those who are concerned with the accuracy are coming from. I really do. 

 

I don't like the straight up haters who just want to see this kid fail because for whatever reason they don't like him and refuse to give him a chance. It's a very long season. But thankfully that means as long as he stays healthy we should have plenty of tape on him by season's end. 

 

I'll say this. The kid is starting to really earn the respect of his teammates with effort like the Goodson scrum TD play. That type of stuff will win over a locker room. It's super frustrating. He's got the right mind, and the right attitude and the right work ethic to be great. It's all there. He's just got to figure out how to make those passes connect. 

 

I hope this works out. I hope beyond hope. Because if we indeed do have to tear everything down and start over? Well it's going to continue to be a really dark place around here for years to come. 

[ADnum1]

I see lots of comparisons to AR to Josh Allen, but please know that Allen is the exception not the rule on fixing accuracy.

 

After Allen's 2018 Rookie season, Allen hired QB guru Jordan Palmer and worked with him the entire offseason on fixing his footwork, mechanics etc, and most importantly the mental approach to the game.

 

 

Josh paid for it out of his own pocket too.  Bills did not pay for it.

 

He worked obsessively to constantly improve the mental aspect of his game as well and also using Digital Mapping to map out his current throwing motion to what it needed to be.

 

He did this with Jordan Palmer

 

https://darimotion.com/post/josh-allen-qb-for-the-bills-discusses-changing-his-throwing-motion-through-dari/

 

He re-vamped his throwing motion completely ground up from what it was during his rookie season.  His throwing motion is completely different now.  And he constantly practiced his new throwing motion until it was second nature.

 

He worked on 

• Basic Footwork
• Foot placement (lining up your feet to the target)
• Stepping into the throw
• Waist turn
• Shoulder turn
• And finally the throw itself.  He usually uses the same motion every time and does not vary it like AR does.

Never content, he did another digital remapping last summer https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/sports/football/nfl/bills/2024/06/12/josh-allen-buffalo-bills-using-technology-change-throwing-mechanics/74064098007/  

 

And continued to refine it, always trying to improve it.

 

He did not get more accurate by "throwing more".  He had it fixed and practiced his new throwing motion obsessively

[shasta519]

He's currently #32 in Completion Rate Over Expected + EPA/play score.

 

The only other QB with a negative CPOE + EPA score has been benched in CAR.

 

If anything, there has been some regression from last year, at least in regards to accuracy. But I don't think this is something you can judge from game to game...it's more about where he is at season's end.

 

 

[richard pallo]

11 hours ago, CR91 said:

Imo, the coaches are failing AR by making him do something that I just don't think he can do right now in his career which is sit in the pocket and make throws. Also once again very little plays to the TEs. Why are we taking away easy throws for AR to make to atleast build his confidence and sustain drives

As far as I can see they have done nothing to correct his throwing motion.  They continue to let him sling it sidearm and it’s not working especially from the pocket.  

[richard pallo]

Teams now know AR is not being used as a run threat.  They can now focus on stopping Taylor and keeping AR in the pocket where he is not very effective.  We are predictable right now.  Not good for a struggling quarterback.  Coaches need to become more creative and play to Richardsons strengths.  They’re trying to put a square peg into a round hole.

[Patrick Miller]

I posted this in another thread, but I’ll post it here as well. Do you think Ballard’s job is safe if we have to endure a losing season (or two) while Richardson gets his reps? Say we go 3-14. Is Ballard gone? 

[shasta519]

12 minutes ago, richard pallo said:

As far as I can see they have done nothing to correct his throwing motion.  They continue to let him sling it sidearm and it’s not working especially from the pocket.  

 

This is exactly right. In the offseason, every coach (Steichen, Turner, Cooter, AR's personal QB coach) talked about what he has been working on to refine his throwing motion. And all of the improvements he has made.

 

And so far, he doesn't look improved at all. If anything, he's gotten a bit worse. He throws those side-arm passes, sails passes, doesn't show much touch, etc.

 

I know it's his 7th game, but he's had NFL coaching for two years now, so some improvement in this area is a reasonable expectation. So is it coaching OR is is the player? 

 

And if it's the player, then short of a Josh Allen-like transformation, not sure what they can do.

 

 

[shasta519]

10 minutes ago, Patrick Miller said:

I posted this in another thread, but I’ll post it here as well. Do you think Ballard’s job is safe if we have to endure a losing season (or two) while Richardson gets his reps? Say we go 3-14. Is Ballard gone? 

 

If they had lost this game, then I think his seat would start warming up. And if this team did go 3-14, then yes, I don't think his job is safe. It shouldn't be.

 

But something like 5-7 wins, I don't see it happening. We are most likely looking at Ballard through 2025, probably a similar timeline for AR too.

[tfunky14]

19 minutes ago, richard pallo said:

Teams now know AR is not being used as a run threat.  They can now focus on stopping Taylor and keeping AR in the pocket where he is not very effective.  We are predictable right now.  Not good for a struggling quarterback.  Coaches need to become more creative and play to Richardsons strengths.  They’re trying to put a square peg into a round hole.

Na, just waiting till the right time to open up the playbook and release the beast.

[throwing BBZ]

13 hours ago, chad72 said:

I’m not disagreeing but will the mechanics break down under duress easily, only time will tell 

 

 He has this 3/4 release point, super fast release, throwing at an upward angle, what I would call a 100mph fastball.

 I can't tell that he learned much having a year + in the system, and I sure can't tell that our coaching staff has done anything to improve his throwing style and accuracy.

 It has to be in his head that he is so bad at hitting very open pass catchers somewhere between belt high and their numbers.

 All he has between his ears is smoking, rising fastballs.

  Hey Coaching Dummies, Make him start by holding the ball 6 or so inches higher, get that elbow up off his side, and make him start his throwing motion from closer to the top of his shoulder. 

 It will slightly slow his super quick release which causes some eraticism, and should flatten out the arc, bring the ball down. How hard is this? 

  

 I preached that we should look back on how he looked the last 1/3 of the season. Those games will give us some truth to what his ceiling Might be.

 For me, it's painful to watch him throw the ball 6' feet over someone's head then watch him walk off the field with that dazed look. It gives me this instant hopeless empty feeling. 

 Please, somebody fix him starting Now!!!

 

 

 

[Coltinator]

And now, the Colts starting strong safety in 2025 ...Anthony Richardson!

[Restinpeacesweetchloe]

Just now, throwing BBZ said:

 

 He has this 3/4 release point, super fast release, throwing at an upward angle, what I would call a 100mph fastball.

 I can't tell that he learned much having a year + in the system, and I sure can't tell that our coaching staff has done anything to improve his throwing style and accuracy.

 It has to be in his head that he is so bad at hitting very open pass catchers somewhere between belt high and their numbers.

 All he has between his ears is smoking, rising fastballs.

  Hey Coaching Dummies, Make him start by holding the ball 6 or so inches higher, get that elbow up off his side, and make him start his throwing motion from closer to the top of his shoulder. 

 It will slightly slow his super quick release which causes some eraticism, and should flatten out the arc, bring the ball down. How hard is this? 

  

 I preached that we should look back on how he looked the last 1/3 of the season. Those games will give us some truth to what his ceiling Might be.

 For me, it's painful to watch him throw the ball 6' feet over someone's head then watch him walk off the field with that dazed look. It gives me this instant hopeless empty feeling. 

 Please, somebody fix him starting Now!!!

 

 

 

You realize he had surgery and couldn’t throw or do footwork mechanics until April. He really didn’t have a year to work on things. People nerf to calm down and have some patience.

[Dingus McGirt]

I would really like to see the same AR we see early last season.  IMO, he is being stifled by the staff's fear of injury - and they are trying to turn him into something he will never be - a pocket passer who only runs when flushed out.

 

There was saying, years ago, about Michael Jordan when he played for UNC.  "The only person who can hold Michael Jordan under 20 points is (UNC Head Coach) Dean Smith."

 

I believe the same about the team's handling of Anthony Richardson.  It's bordering on malpractice.

[el duderino]

honestly he doesnt look like a nfl quarterback to me, but what do you expect from a guy who has 15 college games and 8 nfl games under his belt? 

[Rolltide_gocolts]

I think he evaluated himself the best!! He said after the game he’s in his own head… he needs to just play and not overthink.. trust himself.  That’s how you throw 70 yd missile on a dot… you just do it and don’t think about it too much… 

[JAS90]

People who watched him in college knew he had lots of issues and Colts fans are just finally seeing now. The expectations that he would be good right away + improve quickly were way too high for a player who wasn't great in college. Right now he is exactly who his pre draft critics said he was...time will tell if he figures it out.