Six months ago, Anthony Richardson and the Indianapolis Colts stood at a podium of mutual agreement: the former No. 4 overall pick would be traded, the franchise would recoup what it could, and both sides would move on with their lives. That was February. It is now August, and Richardson is not on another roster, not in another city, not even guaranteed a job in Indianapolis. He is fighting Riley Leonard for the backup job behind Daniel Jones — and he is losing the fight on the most basic play in football: catching a shotgun snap.
"I haven't really talked to my agent about that recently, I haven't really talked to anyone about that recently, so I'm not necessarily sure what's going on with that," Richardson said Sunday when asked about the trade request, via the Indy Star. The man who asked to leave the building doesn't know if the door is still open. That answer tells you everything about where this once-franchise quarterback's value has gone: to zero.
The Fall, By the Numbers
Let's be honest about the resume. In three seasons since the Colts used a top-five pick on the Florida product, Richardson has completed 50.6% of his 350 pass attempts for 2,400 yards, 11 touchdowns and 13 interceptions. Fifty-point-six percent. In an era where offenses are designed to manufacture easy completions, Richardson is completing barely half his passes — and turning the ball over more than he scores. The arm strength that made him a Combine legend was never the problem. The problem is everything that happens between the ears and the fingertips.
The Colts tried. Chris Ballard stood at the Scouting Combine in February and said, "I still believe in Anthony." They declined his fifth-year option in May. They set a reported "soft deadline" for a trade in June. By July, the Packers were being floated as an ideal landing spot. And then August arrived — and nobody called. The market for a project quarterback with an injury history and an uncertain future had dried up before it ever really formed. That's the quiet catastrophe of this story: the Colts wanted to trade him, and couldn't find a buyer.
The Elephant in the Room Is His Right Eye
Here's where this story gets uncomfortable, and where the NFL's code of silence does its worst work. Richardson hasn't played since mop-up duty on Oct. 5 last year, when he fractured the orbital bone in his right eye in a freak accident. He was cleared. He returned to practice. But reports out of camp this week — flagged by USA Today and echoed around the league — say vision concerns could impact his future. NBC Sports' Rap sheet put it bluntly: "ARich's eye health uncertain, done as a Colt?"
Richardson insists the vision isn't the reason behind the botched snaps. Shane Steichen calls it a "concentration" issue. But here's the uncomfortable truth nobody in Indianapolis wants to say out loud: a quarterback who can't catch a snap — the one play that happens on every single down — cannot be trusted by any offensive coordinator, any offensive line, or any team that might trade for him. Whether it's physical or mental, the result is identical: he is not currently reliable enough to be a backup, let alone a starter. And NFL general managers don't trade draft capital for quarterbacks they can't trust.
The Trey Lance Trap
This is the second coming of the Trey Lance problem, and we should stop pretending it's a coincidence. The NFL is not an incubator for raw quarterbacks. Lance, the No. 3 pick in 2021, washed out of San Francisco with 54 career pass attempts and spent years trying to reclaim a roster spot. Richardson was drafted with even less experience — 13 starts at Florida — and asked to be a franchise savior immediately. The league's response to both: a shrug. When you draft a quarterback who needs time to develop, and then don't give him time, you don't get a player. You get a cautionary tale.
The Colts are not blameless here. They handed Richardson the keys as a rookie, benched him when it went sideways, cycled through coaches and centers, and never once built an offense around his actual strengths. Now they're surprised he's inconsistent? The snap issues — which Richardson partially blames on rotating centers, a problem Leonard apparently hasn't had — are a development failure as much as a physical one. Indianapolis spent a top-five pick on a Ferrari and never taught anyone how to drive it.
What Happens Next
Steichen said Sunday that Richardson and Leonard will split snaps in Thursday's preseason opener against the Patriots, with no starter named. The Colts reportedly plan to keep three quarterbacks on the roster, which is the tell: they're holding Richardson as trade bait in case an injury strikes another roster. But the harsh economics say otherwise. If Richardson can't win the backup job cleanly, and teams are spooked by the eye situation, Indianapolis is looking at either a late-round pick in a deadline deal or a straight release that returns nothing for a first-round investment.
Here's my prediction, and I'll be direct about it: Richardson's last meaningful NFL snap as a Colt has already been thrown. The most likely outcome is a late-August trade — the Vikings, who had interest in February and need to fill out a room around J.J. McCarthy, remain the most logical dance partner — for a conditional day-three pick. If that doesn't materialize, he gets cut, and some desperate team with a patient offensive coordinator claims him off waivers, parks him on the bench for a year, and hopes the athleticism that made him a top-five pick finally catches up to the position.
The tragedy of Anthony Richardson isn't that he failed. It's that we will never know if he could have succeeded — because the NFL doesn't develop quarterbacks, it consumes them. And right now, the most physically gifted quarterback in the 2023 draft class can't even secure a football snapped three yards to his chest. That's not a trade story anymore. That's a salvage story.
Nathan Caldwell
Nathan Caldwell edits and writes multi-sport coverage for True Grit Sports, turning game notes, market movement, and key trends into readable context.