– by Adesina O. Koiki
A Lot of Sports Talk editor-in-chief
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EAST RUTHERFORD, NEW JERSEY — Benched. Doubted. Ridiculed. Just like those words’ tenses, Anthony Richardson’s role as the starting quarterback of the Indianapolis Colts, after experiencing all of those descriptions over the past two weeks, was in the past tense.
At least until this present time on Sunday afternoon, when Richardson dazzled in his best game as a professional and gave Colts fans a glimpse of what the future probably holds once the 22-year-old settles in again as Indianapolis’ signal-caller.
In a must-have game for the Colts and their playoff chances, Richardson completed 20-of-30 passes for a career-high 272 yards, and the second of his two touchdown runs was a four-yard jaunt on a designed sweep with 46 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter to lift Indianapolis to a 28-27 victory over the New York Jets inside MetLife Stadium on a sunny Sunday afternoon. The win kept Indianapolis within one game of the Denver Broncos, who won their game later in the day against the Atlanta Falcons, of the final playoff spot in the AFC.
The victory also helped to, at least temporarily, reset the narrative surrounding the second-year signal-caller who was the fourth overall pick of last year’s NFL Draft. Soon after the Colts’ loss to the Houston three weeks ago, Richardson admitted to checking himself out of a game for being tired after going on scrambles on back-to-back plays, and that bit of honesty turned into sports talk fodder for days — with Richardson being the punching back for opinion journalists across the country. That backlash, plus his dreadful 10-for-32 outing in that game, led Colts head coach Shane Steichen to bench Richardson in favor of Joe Flacco, though that move did not yield any victories in the two games the veteran started in losses to the Minnesota Vikings and last week against the Buffalo Bills.
Those two weeks of reflection and being a spectator might not have been in Richardson’s plans, but might be a reflection point in his developing career arc as a starting quarterback in the National Football League.
“It kind of just let me relax a little bit, although I didn’t necessarily want to relax too, too much, but it just allowed me to take a step back and clean up some things that I have to clean up,” Richardson said. “That was really my focus, when I did get the opportunity again, making sure that I was at the best of my ability, and I was doing the right thing for the team.
And doing right for the team given the circumstances that surrounded his demotion was paramount for Richardson, who looked nothing like the 44 percent completion percentage quarterback coming into today as he routinely found soft spots in the middle of the Jets defense before hitting a couple of big shots on the final two scoring drives.
I just hope my teammates see that I’m willing to do anything for them. I’m willing to put my body on the line to go sacrifice anything on the field for them,” Richardson said. “But I definitely appreciate them for just trusting me and believing in me throughout the whole process, regardless of what we had going on. Shoutout to Coach [Steichen], I just appreciate all of the support.”
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