Anthony Richardson Wasn't Benched Because of His Performance
AR's performance has not been particularly stellar, but it has not been as bad as recent 1st round QBs who were benched quickly.
Anthony Richardson was benched in favor of Joe Flacco on Tuesday evening off the back of his Week 8 performance against the Texans where he went 10/32 for 175 yds, 1 TD, and 1 INT. This is an odd decision strictly based on Richardson’s on-field play. I was critical of Richardson before his game last week, and remain skeptical about his future prospects, but he has not performed as bad as highly drafted QBs who were benched quickly. This leads me to believe that Richardson was mostly benched as a result of taking himself out on a 3rd down against the Texans since he “was tired.”
Richardson’s benching coming after only appearing in 10 games is an extremely quick time to pull the plug. He has not played well, but not historically bad. Only Trey Lance was benched after fewer games, and that is an unfair comparison since Lance was replaced by one of the most productive QBs in the NFL after getting injured. Every other QB in this sample got at least 3 more games after being far less efficient overall and not having the same rushing upside of Richardson. Yes Richardson’s CPOE, completion percentage, and accuracy is notably worse than all others on this list (save Lance). It’s just not clear to me that the difference between the least accurate passer and the 8th-least accurate passer is substantial enough in terms of how it impacts an offense to matter in this comparison.
So yes, I believe Richardson has been disappointing so far as a passer. But his production is not as poor as other QBs who have been benched roughly as quickly as he has. So what gives? I believe it was because he took himself out of the game because he was tired on a 3rd down against a divisional opponent in a game which could have given them the divisional lead.
I’ll admit it is partially because I find this sort of thing distasteful. So many NFL players play injured on every single snap, surely you can muster up something inside of you to get it together when you’re winded like every other scrambling QB. Not to mention what it may suggest about his conditioning at this point in the season. But my opinion as a data scientist who quit football after his sophomore year of high school means nothing on that front. More important, his head coach, offensive center, and numerous former players and coaches publicly came out and publicly panned his decision to do so. If his decision to take himself has been so widely panned, and his performance has not been bad enough to suggest a benching after 10 starts, then I believe it was the largest single factor leading to his benching.
Even if this does end up being a temporary benching, this does not bode well for his future. The two most recent QBs to be benched and then brought back to the starting line up, Zach Wilson and the late Dwayne Haskins, did not see their play significantly improve post-benching. Before we decide it’s over for AR, it’s worthwhile though to quickly discuss some other possibilities behind his benching which may change our forecast.
He’s had a couple bad performances in a row so he needs some time to sit and get some mental reps
I find this to be the most plausible of any alternative reason for why the team may have benched him. It’s wholly possible the coaching staff thinks he needs some time off the field to clear his head, temporarily focus on everything outside of Sundays, and use that time to get right.
To be blount for a moment though, I think this would be a bad reason to bench him. The guy has already missed 15 games in his NFL career due to injury, gone through a full offseason program, two full training camps, and has had 1.5 seasons’ worth of weekly preparation. Most of his NFL reps have been mental reps! It’s not clear to me how much more he could benefit on this front so I don’t find this reason terribly convincing.
Head Coach Shane Steichen and General Manager Chris Ballard think that they can keep their jobs by sneaking into the playoffs
I don’t find this line of reasoning very sound. The Colts have spent the past half decade coasting off the backs of various veteran QBs to 9-8 Wild Card-caliber seasons. They made the decision to draft the young, raw, incredibly physically gifted QB as a means to break out of this cycle. But now he gets hurt a couple times, struggles for 10 games, so they can turn around and say to Jim Irsay, “Well it looked like that didn’t work but at least we ended up in the same place we have been ending! Guess we should keep our jobs.”? That seems unlikely.
The locker room had a mutiny to the coaching staff that they couldn’t keep playing with Richardson
I guess this is possible, and we have slight evidence with center Ryan Kelly publicly acknowledging that they needed to have a conversation with AR. I just don’t have any sources in Indianapolis, so there’s no way for me to have a real opinion about this.
With his recent struggles, the coaching staff wants to protect him from facing Brian Flores’s blitz-heavy Vikings defense on Sunday Night Football
There’s no way for me to deny this as a possibility since I don’t know what’s going on in this building or how Richardson has been responding to his own struggles. I just find this rationale from the public to be patronizing towards AR.
He’s a professional athlete that is paid millions of dollars to perform during difficult high-pressure situations with the nation watching him, even when it’s a bad matchup. That is quite literally his job. If the coaching staff think his future prospects are so fragile that it needs to be protected from one bad matchup, I have a hard to believe that they would have drafted and played him at all in the first place.
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A few quick comments. First, I think the analysis isn't whether he has been "historically" bad when compared to other QBs who failed miserably, but whether he has been bad enough to be benched. The answer to the latter is decidedly "yes." The former strikes me as a false comparison, where using that benchmark would leave you never moving off a QB no matter how poor they are. Saying "well, there have been worse QBs historically" is not a particularly compelling strategy for future success.
For me, a slightly better approach would be to show a list of QBs with 10 game comparables and try and discern his future given his start. I suspect, it isn't encouraging...sample size notwithstanding.
Second, the Colts have a lot more information. They see him in practice and in meetings every day. They are in a better position to evaluate him even after "only" 10 games. Additionally,
the locker room gets a vote...the fact that nobody has seemingly stepped forward to defend him or even question the decision, speaks volumes. Not moving off of him likely would mean losing credibility and the locker room, by suggesting an alternative agenda that is not about winning.
Having said that, I wouldn't underestimate the impact of working for a - I'll be kind here - "volatile" owner and how that impacts decisions. Steichen could be regretting his decision to take the job. At a minimum, all those pundits who argued Steichen was the perfect coach for Richardson are deleting their Twitter/X tweets in a hurry.
Thanks for the time.