Anthony Richardson of the Colts has been the most boom-or-bust quarterback since the merger; will he return it?

The Indianapolis Colts placed 2023 first-round pick Anthony Richardson for Sunday night’s game against the Vikings in favor of Joe Flacco on the heels of a 23-20 loss to the Texans where Richardson completed 10 of the 32 assists and admitted to dropping out for a play when he was tired.

In some ways, you can’t blame the Colts, as Flacco is currently in flux and Indianapolis is 4-4 with playoff aspirations. On the other hand, Richardson needs more reps as he enters the NFL as one of the most raw yet talented quarterbacks of all time.

So far, this translates to arguably the most eventful season for a quarterback since the 1970 merger.

Richardson ranks last in the NFL in completion rate (44.4%), currently the lowest among any quarterback in a season since Bengals first-rounder Akili Smith in 2000, known as the one of the biggest failures in draft history. In fact, it’s not the type of business you want to keep if you’re Richardson. Also on the list are Tim Tebow and JaMarcus Russell. The other three players in the table below started four more games total in their careers after these seasons.

Lowest completion rate in a season since 2000

Richardson presents some other very disturbing figures here. His success rate is 48.4% with clean pockets. 37.5% in the first half of this year. 29.4% coverage compared to humans. And a horrendous 26.5% compared to blitz. He ranks last in the NFL in completion percentage over expectation (-12.5%).

His season was something of a “Dos Equis” commercial. He doesn’t complete passes often, but when he does, they go for a ton of yards.

He leads the NFL in yards per completion (16.2) this year, the most in a season since 2000. He took our breath away with throws like this:

So in 2024, he has both the lowest completion rate and the highest yards per season completed in a season since 2000. It’s the definition of boom or bust and l one of the reasons why Indianapolis is making a quarterback change at the moment.

He is the only qualified quarterback over the last 35 seasons with a completion rate below 50% and a yards per completion rating above 15.0.

The last quarterback to finish last in completion rate but first in yards per completion, as Richardson currently does, was Heath Shuler in 1994, 30 years ago.

This is one of the most volatile quarterback profiles of all time. His career results are about as wide as the grand canyon, ranging from as low as a Tebow or Russell to as high as Cam Newton or Michael Vick.

This statistic perhaps best sums up the situation. He is the first player with a sub-50% completion rate and 15+ yards per completion over a six-game span since Tebow from 2010-11. But the last one to do that in six games during the same season was Vick in 2001.

So can he turn things around? Absolutely.

His 10-for-32 performance in Week 8 provides insight into the problem of overreacting to a bad game. He wasn’t as bad as he looked on paper and didn’t deserve to be benched. He posted his lowest off-target rate of the year (12.5%) and the majority of misses weren’t necessarily his fault. He could easily have had a more important match. He had eight failures on throws more than 15 yards downfield that were either dropped, defended or following miscommunication, the most of any quarterback in a game this season.

He has the longest average pass length (12.8 yards downfield) of any quarterback in a season since Tebow in 2011 (12.9). This is one of the reasons why his success rate is so low and why he needs more experience to learn better touch and how to perform the check, among other things.

Can Anthony Richardson turn things around?

Is the bench a mistake? I believe it. He needs repetitions to improve. He threw just over 600 passes and made 23 starts in his entire college and professional career. The Colts made a questionable commitment to starting him in Week 1 as a rookie, even though he was one of the most raw quarterback prospects of all time. How can they change course now, even though he’s already hit the pause button several times during his development. He only played in 10 of a possible 25 games during his NFL career and he left four of those games at some point due to injury. Here are some reasons to be optimistic:

• 23 starts in a college/NFL career (10 in NFL)
• Tied for fewest college starts by first-round quarterback since 2000 (13)
• Week 8: lowest off-target rate of the season (12.5%)
• Week 8: Eight failures on throws over 15 air yards, dropped, defended or miscommunication (most QBs in a game this season)
• 2024: Longest average pass length (12.8) since Tebow in 2011

The Colts have no Super Bowl cap space with Flacco and he’s not the long-term answer, but they risk not playing Richardson for the rest of the year and stunting his growth just so they can make the playoffs? It seems like people care more about their jobs than what’s best for the organization.