Young NFL breakout candidates for 2024: QB Anthony Richardson, Colts

Quarterback – Anthony Richardson, Colts

This almost feels like cheating, because I was ready to crown AR15 along with C.J. Stroud as “the next big things” less than a month into their rookie seasons, but I’ve been a fan for a while now, and since I just asked “if he has enough live reps to be a true superstar in year two” as part of my burning questions for each AFC team, I thought I should break it down in more detail here.

First and foremost, I had all three quarterbacks who were selected within the first four picks of the 2023 draft as top 10 prospects, and as I mentioned back then, I flirted with the idea of putting Richardson first, since the ceiling he presents was the highest of the class and I thought the baseline he provides was better than people gave him credit for.

A four-star recruit in 2020, this guy only started 14 games at Florida, completing just 54.7% of his passes for 3105 yards and 24 touchdowns versus 15 interceptions, along with another 1,116 yards and 12 TDs on the ground. However, I thought those lackluster numbers were more the result of his environment, where the spacing of their passing concepts was poor, his receivers didn’t separate at a high rate and didn’t cash in on opportunities to make plays for their QB when he gave them chances.

Now, as I said in April last year, there were some inconsistencies in terms of accuracy in the short range, his ability to identify coverage rotations was still a work in progress and he needed to mature to some degree as a decision-maker out of structure. Nonetheless, I thought the sentiment of him being “raw” was oversimplifying things, and I’ve gone into detail about how I preferred the term “inexperienced” to describe some of the areas of his game that he still needed to work on.

Taking into account that he missed the second halves of two of the four games he played before suffering a shoulder injury that cost him the majority of his rookie season, Richardson basically accounted for 238 total yards per game and seven combined touchdowns compared to only two turnovers.

Looking at the Colts' passing game structurally while the then-rookie was still available, you saw them deploy plenty of multi-tight-end sets and condensed formations, out of which they’d aggressively attack with two-man play-action concepts at times. Even when they opted for 11 personnel, they’d use the traffic they could create from stacking their pass-catcher closer together and ran a lot of mesh concepts, which coach Shane Steichen would dress up slightly differently.

Richardson has the type of bazooka attached to his right shoulder that even when he’s a beat late or there’s no space to step into the throw, he can fire in passes in the 15- to 5-yard range at the sideline. He can fire in seam balls just as his guys clear the second level or put it in front of his target to beat a trailing defender with generally good position.

You’ll see him drop down the arm angle and speed up his release a little bit, especially when trying to just sling it out to somebody leaking out into the flats as part of their RPO game. We didn’t get a chance to see a whole lot in terms of manipulating guys on the back end, but Richardson would force flat defenders to sink due to his posture, and in particular, I liked some of the look-offs when he was on the move, especially when he knows he has somebody breaking open coming across the field.

He needs to operate with better eye discipline and not stare down the window between zone defenders on spacing concepts or anticipation sit-down routes. On deep curls in particular, I thought some of the passes were far from pinpoint, not allowing the intended target to work for it and to protect the ball. And according to Pro Football Focus, he only registered three big-time throws compared to four turnover-worthy plays.

Richardson’s pressure-to-sack conversion numbers (22.6% rate) weren’t quite as good as they were in college, but I thought his pocket presence and innate feel for moving away from pressure points did show up on a few occasions. That was one of my big takeaways from watching his Florida tape. He regularly got away to the left side by tucking in the throwing shoulder, working around backside pressure up his face and squaring his body again to deliver passes down the field. Plus, he’d quickly get that second hand back on the ball if they separated for a second.

Some of the throwaways he had, often with a defender already wrapped around him, even getting it off after switching over to left hand in a couple of games, were pretty crazy. While he’ll leap over trash and run designed plays like a running back would, when he escapes the pocket, he tries to stay upright and get guided out of bounds or slides.

As a rookie, AR15 was pressured on 31.6% of his dropbacks, and even though he brought some of that on himself, with a time-to-throw mark of 2.86 seconds, there’s reason to believe that the second-year QB will receive cleaner pockets, considering for the full 2023 season, the Colts O-line finished sixth in both pass-blocking efficiency (86.4) and PFF pass-blocking grade (71.7).

Richardson had a couple of nice scrambles, but really on designed runs is where he hurt defenses, averaging 9.0 yards on those, where that mid-4.4 speed could flash occasionally. You saw some classic zone reads, at times with a tight end sifting across as a lead blocker, if the end crashes. They ran “counter bash” with the backside guard and tackle pulling, and something that could be a true weapon is the QB draws with a slightly delayed wrap-around, while the back flares out to pull a linebacker with him.

With the selection of second-round pick Adonai Mitchell from Texas, they added my WR4 and someone I consider as a potential X who can win one-on-one on the backside of the formation, which allows them to move around Michael Pittman Jr. more regularly. Josh Downs complements the size they have otherwise among their receiving corps, as a smaller and shifty slot, while Alec Pierce could at least function as a tall vertical target, and I’ll get to one of their young tight ends I expect to make a jump along with his quarterback further down this list.

With a healthy Jonathan Taylor sharing the backfield with Richardson, they could have one of the most lethal duos to put stress on defenses on the ground, and the way this O-line rebounded has me confident in their ability to keep the latter upright. Ultimately, I trust the development plan they’ve put in place and the infrastructure Steichen and company are building to facilitate the growth of their young signal-caller, where they encourage him to play loose and grow on the fly while setting boundaries with play designs that take stuff off his plate at a certain rate of snaps, instead of possibly stunting that development by putting him in a gimmicky offense that doesn’t allow him to make mistakes.

So, as I’ve mentioned before, I consider this young man as a potential darkhorse MVP candidate, if everything works out.