Anthony Richardson Takes Firm Stance on Whether Injuries Will Affect How He Plays
Colts’ second-year QB Anthony Richardson says he won’t change style of play despite injury concerns.
Highlights
- Richardson won’t change his playing style in 2024 despite injuries signaling a need for adjustment.
- A pair of elite, young AFC South QBs pose a challenge for Richardson’s Colts.
- Injury concerns haunt Richardson, who claims unavoidable circumstances led to his season-ending injury as rookie.
If you’re an Indianapolis Colts fan, you may want to look away when your team takes the field in 2024—because the style of play that ended quarterback Anthony Richardson’s rookie season in 2023 isn’t going to change anytime soon.
Richardson vowed to keep using his athleticism to make plays in 2024 despite suffering a concussion, then a season-ending shoulder injury that required surgery in 2023.
When you’re 22 years old, 6-foot-4 and 244 pounds with a cannon for an arm and 4.43 speed … it would be easy to think you’re invincible. Which Richardson actually might think he is, despite all evidence pointing to the contrary (via NFL.com):
Changing my game and my play style? I don’t feel like there’s anything wrong with my play style. People see me, I’m a big quarterback, so they always think, ‘Oh, he wants to run the ball all the time, he wants to be physical and that’s what’s gonna get him hurt.’ But that’s not the case.
Richardson only played four games in 2023, going 2-2 as the starter and throwing for 577 yards, three touchdowns, and one interception while rushing for 136 yards and four touchdowns on just 25 carries.
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Richardson claimed that his major injuries last year did not stem from the way he plays or runs the ball, but rather from extenuating circumstances that could not be helped or avoided:
I don’t think there’s any way I could have avoided what happened to me. Just a regular, routine tackle. I tried to brace myself for the fall and just my shoulder did what it did. There’s nothing I could do about that…
The one time, the one concussion, that was me completely because I slowed down by the end zone — you’re never supposed to do that. Everything else, it just happened because we play a dangerous game, and there’s nothing I can do about that.
Richardson, the No. 4 overall pick in the 2023 NFL Draft out of Florida, might want to change something about his style of play if the Colts are going to become contenders in the AFC South—much less the AFC as a whole.
The Colts, for all intents and purposes, are facing an uphill battle with a pair of elite, young quarterbacks in the division with 2021 No. 1 overall pick Trevor Lawrence taking snaps for the Jacksonville Jaguars and 2023 No. 2 overall pick C.J. Stroud throwing passes for the Houston Texans.
Lawrence and Stroud have also been winners on every level—from high school to college to the pros. Meanwhile, Richardson went 6-6 in his one season as a full-time starter at Florida in 2022.
Stroud was the NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year in 2023 after leading the Texans to the AFC South title. Lawrence led the Jaguars to a playoff win in 2022.
Richardson has injury concerns dating back to high school, when he was featured on Season 4 of the documentary series “QB1: Beyond the Lights” alongside 2023 No. 1 overall pick Bryce Young of the Carolina Panthers.
While the big-bodied QB seems adamant that he won’t be changing who he is as a player, he also recognizes that different situations call for him to play in a different manner throughout a game and season:
I don’t think I’m gonna change it, but being smart, knowing when to get extra yards and knowing when to get down, I feel like I know how to do that. It’s just I have to do it and do it at the right time, I guess.
If Richardson can toe that fine line between too aggressive and too passive to avoid injury, he could truly turn into a man on a mission in 2024 and wreak havoc in a burgeoning AFC South.
