Why Is Anthony Richardson Still On The Colts Bench?
Source: Justin Casterline / Getty
When the Colts announced that they were benching Anthony Richardson a few weeks ago, we all heard the reasons they gave as justification.
The main reason they kept emphasizing was that 39-year-old Joe Flacco gave the team the best shot to win on Sunday. Sure, Richardson’s tap out against Houston wasn’t a good look, and may have made the decision easier, but the Colts kept up the front publicly that this was performance based, and that the Colts were doing this to try and make a playoff run.
With each passing week that explanation holds less and less water.
Flacco has been awful in his two starts since taking over, and every time head coach Shane Steichen has been pressed on when or if Richardson will be put back under center, he refers to some vague “process” that the team is going through with him. With their steadfast refusal to apparently even consider reinserting Richardson back into the lineup, it draws into question just what is going on behind the scenes at W 56th Street.
There have been rumors that Richardson may have struggled a bit with professionalism and needed a wakeup call, and that the benching was an attempt to get through to him about what is expected of an NFL quarterback. If that was the case, has the message not been received? Was losing his starting job not enough? Were things much worse behind the curtain than we were led to believe? If the Colts keep trotting Flacco out there after continued poor performances, it’s hard not to think that they were, and still are.
During the Tuesday edition of The Ride With JMV, Bob Kravitz of bobkravitz.com joined the show and shared his thoughts on what is going on with the Colts.
“If Flacco stinks it up again against New York, and Steichen comes back next Monday in his Zoom press conference and says ‘We’re staying with Joe, he gives us the best chance to win’, then we know something is very, very wrong…I mean look, the Colts had to know that they were going to look like a bunch of idiots if they benched Richardson, and yet they did it anyway, so that tells me that there’s something going on here. As media people, we think we know to a certain level, but we don’t know what’s going on behind closed doors. So, either they picked the wrong guy, or they mishandled the guy that they drafted, one of the two, and either way it’s a bad reflection on the organization.”
Bob also spoke about who he thinks was the driving force behind the move to bench Richardson, and why they made that move.
“I have been told that this is not a Jim Irsay production the way it was in 2022, when he mandated that Matt Ryan be benched in favor of, God help us all, Sam Ehlinger. I think this is a Steichen move, I think he’s trying to prove something to the young quarterback, to Anthony, trying to get him to figure out what it means to be a professional. Maybe in the long run this works out well for them, maybe the light goes on, I don’t know, that’s [what] they’re counting on, but if Flacco plays poorly as I was mentioning before, and they come back with Flacco yet again for the Detroit game, that tells me that they’ve given up on this kid for this year at least.”
Listen to JMV’s conversation with Bob, as well as with Greg Rakestraw down below, and tune into The Ride With JMV weekdays from 3-6pm on 93.5/107.5 The Fan!
