Who knows what the future holds for us Colts’ fans
I did not expect that, everything the Colts have said has indicated that they would give AR the time and patience to develop, fully understanding that this is a young quarterback with very little experience, and that there will be some rough patches along the way. That seems to have been a lie, because it looks like the team will ride the rest of the season with Joe Flacco at quarterback.
Is Flacco a better quarterback than Richardson right now? 100% yes, I don’t think anyone questions that. Now is Flacco a good enough quarterback to guide the Colts on a deep playoff run this season? Not a chance at all. And Flacco is under contract for just this year with the Colts. He will be 40 in just two months, he is not the long term answer.
Now the way I see it there are several different possible scenarios that could have led us to where we are right now, and there is not a single one that gives me hope about the future of this mediocre, and terribly run franchise.
The first one is that Richardson is being punished because of him taking a play off against the Texans, and that he will be named the starter again after this week, or perhaps after the first series. I have the (dumb, I know) hope that this is all a show and Richardson is benched only the first series, only to come out against an unprepared Vikings’ defense and torches them on SNF, establishing himself once again as the franchise quarterback. That is just wishful thinking at this point, and probably nowhere close to being the truth.
If the decision is not based “at all” on him subbing himself out, as some sources are saying, then either the team has completely given up on AR but don’t want to say just yet, which again, would be the dumbest thing to do, or truly believe that benching the young quarterback is the correct way to help his development. You knew and said that the guy needs time, that he needs to play and make mistakes, to be PATIENT. Ballard did not spend big in free agency because this was supposed to be Richardson’s rookie year, and the Colts understood that there could be a lot of inconsistencies. Colts’ management said it time and time again, he needs to play and make mistakes in order to learn. Giving up on him so early, when he has not been that bad either, and with such a small sample size would be just so dumb that I cannot wrap my head around it. You draft a young inexperienced quarterback knowing damn well he needs time to develop, he understandably struggles a bit, and you bench him? What message does that send to AR? Look at the past 25 years of NFL football, when does benching a young quarterback helped the guy? You either allow him to ride out the highs and the lows, or you let him learn from the comfort of the bench, like Mahomes or Jordan Love did. What is this start and then bench? This sort of approach has never worked in the past, so why should it work for us right now?
All this “management” does is makes me want to quit on this team. I don’t know if it is Irsay, or Ballard, or Steichen, and I honestly don’t care. Ever since Luck retired the management of this team has been absolutely terrible, and I don’t want to spend my time and mental health rooting for such a disfunctional and stupid franchise. When there is an undisputed trend of mismanagement, you start looking at the guys at the top. Firing your head-coach and hiring an ESPN analyst, having your franchise quarterback’s surprise retirement being announced in the middle of a pre-season game by an outsider, your best player of all time being more present for a franchise for which he played just four seasons, and I will do him the favour of not even mentioning the off-the-field issues. I will see how the rest of the year plays out, but as long as Irsay runs this franchise, I think things will get much worse before they finally get better.
