Doyel: Colts rookie Anthony Richardson needs Jonathan Taylor, and even more help than that
INDIANAPOLIS – Get used to this, Colts fans, and not just this 31-21 loss Sunday to the Jaguars. But by all means, do get used to losing too. The Colts are going to lose more than they win this year, the first season of the Anthony Richardson Experiment.
In Las Vegas, some genius put the over-under on the Colts’ win total entering the season at 6½, and while gambling is the dumbest thing on earth, I was tempted to put my house, my 401(k) and my beloved dog’s two front teeth on the “under.” The 2023 Indianapolis Colts will be lucky to win four games.
Their roster stinks, is my point. What we saw Sunday? Anthony Richardson, the best player on the offensive side of the ball? By a huge margin? That was no fluke. This Colts roster is barren of elite offensive talent, other than the guy on the Physically Unable to Perform list, running back Jonathan Taylor, whose agent decided hours before the first game of the season was a fine time to leak this to his buddies in the national media:
Taylor is fine! He could pass the physical right now!
Seriously, that’s what the agent told his media stooges. Well, technically it was a “source” who gave that information to various national reporters, but I’ve been doing this long enough to know exactly how the sausage is made. Especially when it’s being made by an agent as unintelligent as Taylor’s representative, and when it’s given to reporters who aren’t even trying to protect agent Malki Kawa, er, their “source.”
So anyway, where were we?
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Oh, right. Get used to what we saw and heard on Sunday, because we’re going to see and hear it all season. Leaks from Jonathan Taylor’s side, trying to make him look attractive to whichever team wants to acquire a me-first, injury-faking running back coming off an actual injury. The ankle issue clearly has healed; he’s just been faking the need for more rehab. Taylor has three more games on the PUP list, which means three more weeks of leaks from Kawa, er, a source – unless someone reads this story to him and lets him know he just outed his client, and the Colts, as manipulating the PUP list to stash a disgruntled diva.
The NFL has rules against that.
Why the Colts are playing along with Taylor’s charade, I couldn’t tell you. I’ve lost some respect for the organization for the way it’s allowed Taylor to hijack this season. But enough about that.
Can Anthony Richardson focus for 60 minutes?
Richardson was knocked out of his first NFL game. As far as omens go, that’s not a good one.
We all know Richardson is real life super-hero – built like Superman, fast like The Flash – but he’s not playing against people built like, well, me. NFL defenders are big and fast, too, and one of them crunched Richardson on his final snap, a 2-yard scramble near the goal line. He stayed down on the field as the crowd was groaning and people in the press box were literally saying, all around me: “Oh boy.”
Richardson said it was a knee thing, and his knee is fine. Praise the Lord, because he’s the only reason to buy a ticket to see this team, unless you want to see the league’s highest-paid long snapper. The offensive talent is so awful, backup quarterback Gardner Minshew II might not score a point this season. I don’t care how many games he plays, or how many drives he starts inside the opponent’s 5-yard line. It’s math, people: Minshew multiplied by this offense?
Ugh.
After the game, Richardson said something fascinating. He was asked for his “takeaway” from his first NFL game:
“You can’t take off one play,” he said. “You can’t take off one quarter, thinking (it’s OK because) you’ve got the lead.”
Do you see what he just said there?
You can’t take off one quarter.
That’s what he did. He took off most of the third and fourth quarters. Here are the numbers, and they are not misleading:
With 11½ minutes left in the third quarter, Richardson was 16-for-20 for 156 yards, no interceptions and a touchdown. Two of his four incompletions were batted down at the line of scrimmage. A third should’ve been caught. He also was the Colts’ leading rusher with 28 yards on four carries. The Colts led 21-17, and Richardson looked like an early candidate for the Offensive Rookie of the Year trophy.
Over the next 20 minutes of game clock, Richardson was 1-for-7 for 8 yards, with two sacks, an interception. The Jaguars scored 14 straight points for a 31-21 lead. Stop engraving the trophy.
In his final drive, now trailing by 10 points, Richardson woke up. Maybe someone waved smelling salts under his nose, or gave him a Snickers. Whatever happened, he went on a 6-for-7 tear for 54 yards and scrambled for yards too. He had regained his focus – he was Offensive Rookie of the Year Anthony – and the Colts were driving.
Alas, Richardson was knocked from the game. Enter Minshew, second-and-goal from the 1. Colts didn’t score. Why? You know the math.
Chilling fact to consider: Richardson had the same late-game disappearing act against the Eagles in his longest action of the preseason, and I wrote about it that night. He was great, and then, as I wrote that night, he “seemed to lose focus. It felt like he didn’t want to be on the field anymore, like he’d done well earlier and just wanted to be done.”
Richardson has had two long outings for the Colts. He’s lost focus, his play falling off a cliff, both times.
Small sample size, you say?
It’s the only sample we’ve got.
Jonathan Taylor, Colts deserve each other
If the Colts win a game this season, it will be with defense and special teams.
Well, with defense.
Their special teams don’t look special anymore. They allowed a 46-yard punt return late in the game, the ball bouncing inside the 10, the nearest Colts waiting to down the ball, the nearest Jaguar – a punt returner, you call him – grabbing the “punt” and “returning” it 46 yards. That led to Jacksonville’s go-ahead touchdown, and Richardson’s interception on the next series led to their final TD, a 26-yard run by Travis Etienne Jr.
That led half the crowd to leave, booing on their way out, as if the defense was to blame for this loss. Grow up, boo birds. This ain't Philadelphia.
The Colts’ defense ain’t bad, either. Linebacker Shaq Leonard returned and looked fine. Not great, not Leonard-like – not yet – but he looked fine. The defensive front looked surprisingly good: five tackles for loss, including sacks from Buckner and Kwity Paye. Linebacker Zaire Franklin had 18 tackles, and cornerback Tony Brown made a tremendous, quick-reaction interception of a tipped pass.
Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence carved up the Colts secondary in the first half, but Jacksonville coach Doug Pederson spent the second half running into the teeth of a Colts defensive front led by Buckner and Grover Stewart. That was dumb, kind of like the reaction from Pederson’s entire offense when Buckner hit Lawrence on a third-quarter pass, causing a fumble that hopped into the indifferent arms of Jags running back Tank Bigsby. Everybody on the Jaguars thought the play was dead – that Buckner had forced an incompletion – but Franklin whacked the ball from Bigsby’s hands and Buckner rumbled 26 yards for the touchdown and a 21-17 Colts lead.
For a while it seemed like the Colts might actually beat Jacksonville, the heavy AFC South favorites, but then Richardson lost his focus and the defense lost its will and the crowd lost its interest. Get used to all of this, people. The Colts might win a few games, but only if the game is ugly, like this one. The Colts don’t have the talent to win a beauty contest.
On the bright side, Jonathan Taylor is healthy. His agent says so, which means some NFL team will get a healthy running back in about a month. Maybe it will be the Colts. Maybe this team and that running back deserve each other.
Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar or at www.facebook.com/greggdoyelstar.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Colts vs. Jaguars: Anthony Richardson needs that pain Jonathan Taylor
