Anthony Richardson cannot reach a standard that does not exist

On By Littum

INDIANAPOLIS – Colts quarterback Anthony Richardson dropped back from his own 11-yard line, saw his tight end drive between layers of zone coverage and fired a ball right to him — between the numbers, in the net of two gloved hands, shadowed away from the nearest defender.

And Drew Ogletree dropped it.

Richardson was so sure he had a touchdown that he knelt on the sideline to celebrate. And when he saw the ball bounce lifelessly to the turf, he turned his head back and smiled.

Sometimes you have to laugh to keep from screaming.

It also just happened on Colts first drive of the game after Richardson drove them inside the 10 and faced a third-and-6. He dropped back from the shotgun and waited for an Adonai Mitchell route to develop in the end zone, only for Za’Darius Smith to spin Quenton Nelson around like a top and dump his 270-pound frame into the lap of the 22-year-old. – old quarterback.

Richardson had just enough time to stand tall and sail the throw out of the end zone before crashing onto his back onto the turf. But after running back Jonathan Taylor picked him up again, he let out a ferocious scream with an intense look at the line of scrimmage.

“I knew we were in the red zone,” Richardson said after his team lost 24-6 to Detroit, “and we just didn’t finish.”

Instead, those two possessions in the red zone created an easy line in the sand where a battle against the high-flying Lions would be lost.

It was so easy to see that it left a quarterback screaming and laughing just to drown the pain.

This game was supposed to be an encore to what happened just seven days ago in New York, when Richardson returned from a two-week benching and played the game of his life to ignite his first comeback victory in the fourth quarter. After the most humiliating two weeks of his life, Richardson suddenly had a buffet of positives to build on from a 20-to-30 performance.

He was, by far, the young quarterback this team wanted to see, both in play and demeanor, in consistency and in confidence.

And he was pretty much the same player Sunday against the Lions. Only it’s hard to see through the box when he finishes 11 of 28, and it’s hard to justify through the results of a home game by the Lions.

But that’s reality on a day with a season-high 75 penalty yards and on an afternoon where he took six hits from Lions defenders without a single sack.

“I don’t think the penalties negated his incompletions,” wide receiver Alec Pierce said. “It was a lot of completions and a lot of good balls that were called back, so I’m sure his stats don’t really reflect how he played and threw the ball.”

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They weren’t, but it can happen in a sport like soccer, known as the ultimate team game. The Lions are a showcase for that, reviving Jared Goff’s career after the Rams gave up on him by instilling his confidence and backing him with the league’s best offensive line, featuring a reigning 800-yard tight end in Sam LaPorta and a reigning . 1,500 yard wide receiver in Amon-Ra St. Brown and two running backs in Jahmyr Gibbs and David Montgomery, who already combine for 21 touchdowns on the young season.

It takes two to tango, and for as young as Richardson is, he understood that early. Take his quote from the NFL Scouting Combine in the months before the Colts made him the No. 4 pick in the draft:

“I can definitely get better and deliver the ball and help my guys up. But I can’t catch every pass either,” Richardson said then. “If I could, I sure would. But it’s also helping guys and helping guys help me.”

That’s not a quarterback line to say, especially not at this level, where that position serves as the CEO of a billion-dollar franchise. Benching was about making him learn those realities a little more, to spend two weeks in the dark while a nation tapped him for professionalism and focus, all so that he could eventually emerge and rise to the standard of those around him .

But that standard never came Sunday to Lucas Oil Stadium. Some of the issues were new, such as the penalties that wiped out a number of strong plays, such as a 21-yard completion to Kylen Granson, a 7-yard first-down conversion to Josh Downs and a 30-yard explosive gain to Downs, all called back .

“A lot of our explosive plays were called back,” Downs said. “The game probably wouldn’t have gone like that if we had those explosive plays.”

But they did because the players on the Colts who were supposed to back up Richardson were left blocking with their hands in the face of defensive linemen or tackling rushers to the ground.

They dropped passes, from Ogletree’s missed touchdown to an explosive gain where Ashton Dulin forgot to land his other foot in bounds. They didn’t run around him, leaving his 61 yards on carries to account for 64% of the team’s rushing success. Taylor managed just 35 yards on 11 carries, marking the fewest yards he’s had on double-digit carries in his career.

“I feel like we could have been a lot more physical out there,” Richardson said. “I feel like we could have played a little more bully to say the least.”

They couldn’t hold up in pass protection and asked him to throw the ball away with defenders draped on his spills, turning six quarterback hits into zero sacks. And they couldn’t get open across the middle of the field, with three active tight ends combining for zero catches on just three targets.

Because as much as the Colts have rightly asked Richardson to grow, they have failed to develop enough with him. And it has left the rest of them where they started this season, turning the first team into a pass-happy attack without the game of the base to build a rhythm.

And rhythm, as Michael Pittman Jr. pointed out, is just a synonym for confidence when it comes to a young quarterback.

“I think we can just expand and help him by getting some easier finishes,” Pierce said. “It’s hard to throw the ball downfield. He’s got to take a deeper drop back. It’s harder on the O-line. I think we can help him by getting more quick plays.”

Pierce is now the third Colts starting wide receiver to make public suggestions about running shorter routes to stay on the field and hold off hits from a quarterback who has missed 15 games to injury the past two seasons.

Pierce, Downs and Pittman have all done this, but they are not the ones designing the offense.

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Shane Steichen responded perfectly last week to the possibility of installing a new offense for Richardson’s return that might better suit his quarterback’s young mindset and dual-threat abilities. The Colts ran the ball in that game on 20 of their first 27 plays, and while the running game didn’t find general success, it made Richardson feel alive with two rushing touchdowns and minimized the risk of turnovers that had eaten their offense alive.

But the task was much higher this week when it wasn’t Aaron Rodgers and the Jets they had to keep up with. This was the best offense in the NFL, and so when those red zone possessions didn’t find the end zone, the Colts knew they were going to have to get them back.

All that led to was panic.

That came from Steichen, who only called one rushing play for Taylor the entire second half. That came from his offensive line and tight ends and receivers who couldn’t get through their best games without committing penalties.

They were expected to be the equals, the veteran pros who didn’t lose their jobs when the offense went five straight weeks without scoring more than 20 points. But Sunday’s homecoming showed just the opposite of balance.

This was stress, over a unit that didn’t sound, over looming questions with no easy answers and over a season teetering on the brink at 5-7.

The schedule suggests the Colts could theoretically make a playoff run. Only 7-5 Denver represents a difficult matchup on paper, with the other four games coming against teams from New England, Jacksonville, Tennessee and the New York Giants, who are a combined 10-35.

But just as Sunday against the Lions was theoretically an encore for a revamped quarterback and a newfound offensive identity, theories don’t win games. Ogletree was theoretically open and Smith theoretically blocked and Dulin theoretically ready for an explosive gain.

The Colts need solutions, not theories. And until they find some, their quarterback will be wearing those frustrations one sarcastic laugh and furious scream at a time.

Note: This story has been updated to include new information.