The way the Colts are handling offseason puts more pressure on Anthony Richardson

INDIANAPOLIS — The Colts say they want to keep the pressure from boiling up around Anthony Richardson.

Have said it throughout this offseason.

The Colts saw the sparks of brilliance, but the team’s decision-makers, particularly general manager Chris Ballard, have stressed the need to leave room for Richardson to grow.

“He’s going to go through some growing pains still,” Ballard said. “Let’s just don’t expect him to step out there and be Superman right away.”

But the way Indianapolis has approached this offseason is putting more pressure on Richardson than anything the outside world can throw at him.

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The Colts are asking Richardson to do the heavy lifting to take the team to the next level.

Indianapolis surprised everybody last season.

Forced to play without Richardson or superstar running back Jonathan Taylor for large chunks of the season, a team coming off an unmitigated disaster in 2023 ended up fighting its way to the doorstep of the playoffs.

Expectations rose.

Significantly.

Indianapolis hasn’t shied away from them.

“I think we’re right on the cusp of something really special here,” Shane Steichen said the day the Colts put the 2023 season to bed.

Three days later, Ballard doubled down on Steichen’s optimism despite his natural inclination to preach patience.

“We should legitimately be competing for the division and playoffs,” Ballard said. “That’s really our expectation every year, but I think that is really possible here going forward.”

Middle linebacker Zaire Franklin put it more bluntly.

“It’s time for us to go get it now,” Franklin said.

But the Colts have done precious little to raise their ceiling this offseason. Defensive tackle Raekwon Davis and quarterback Joe Flacco, the two outside free agents Ballard signed in March, are either backups or rotational players. Ballard spent his salary cap space instead on retaining 11 of his own 15 free agents, along with handing extensions to Franklin and star defensive tackle DeForest Buckner.

Bringing back a lot of those internal free agents was critical.

The loss of Michael Pittman Jr. or Kenny Moore II or Grover Stewart or Julian Blackmon or Tyquan Lewis would have created massive needs in the lineup, holes the Colts would have been forced to fill, potentially with players who were worse. If those players continue to play at the level they showed last season, Indianapolis secured its floor, a floor that likely isn’t far from its 9-8 finish, considering how much time the Colts spent playing without Richardson or superstar running back Jonathan Taylor.

If Indianapolis is going to raise its ceiling, though, that improvement is going to have to come from within.

Or from the draft class, a proposition that Ballard has repeatedly acknowledged is dicey at best. Indianapolis has gotten instant impact from a lot of rookies during Ballard’s tenure — Josh Downs is the latest in a long line of players that goes through Jonathan Taylor and back to the Quenton Nelson-Shaq Leonard-Braden Smith triumvirate in 2018 — but there have also been a lot of rookies who took some time to make an impact.

Ballard knows this better than anybody.

The Colts general manager reminds the public of that reality every April, preaching patience with his new picks in every post-draft press conference.

Ballard makes up for that at times by counting on development from the draft picks who’ve already been in his building for a year or two without breaking out; by now, history indicates that some of those players will rise to the challenge, but it’s also possible that a few will never realize the vision.

And some of the team’s established players might not reach expectation because of injury or aging or another factor that might not be fully known at this time.

That leaves the pressure on Richardson, and to a lesser extent, Taylor.

Indianapolis has to be more explosive offensively in 2024. While Gardner Minshew and Zack Moss were able to play well enough to earn chances elsewhere in free agency this offseason, neither player was a consistent home-run threat, a key component of Shane Steichen’s offense.

And the team’s decision to give defensive coordinator Gus Bradley the same secondary that struggled with consistency last season might limit the defense’s ability to improve on its 28th-place in scoring, particularly against a schedule that will almost certainly feature many more of the NFL’s top quarterbacks than the list of backups Indianapolis faced last season.

Which means the Colts need to score.

A responsibility that largely falls on the rehabilitating right shoulder of Richardson. Indianapolis was 24th in the NFL in explosive passing plays last season, a disappointing finish tied to Minshew’s reluctance to pull the trigger on open throws down the field.

Richardson is being asked to make the passing game more explosive, and while he may have more explosive weapons — tight end Jelani Woods is now healthy and the Colts will likely add a pass catcher with a draft pick — the quarterback still has to get the ball to them.

The team’s precocious second-year quarterback has to be the one to do it.

Indianapolis is also expecting Richardson to improve the running game.

Taylor has shown in the past that he can carry an offense, and with the presence of the dangerous, dynamic Richardson in the backfield, the Colts running game may be much more explosive next season.

In other words, unless a chunk of young players take the next step and transform the defense into a unit that dictates games, the lion’s share of the responsibility for the Colts reaching their increased expectations will fall on Richardson, a quarterback who has taken just 173 snaps at the NFL level.

Maybe Richardson will rise to the challenge.

Indianapolis used the No. 4 pick on the former Florida quarterback because they “believe in what he can be,” in Ballard’s words. The Colts wouldn’t have taken Richardson if they believed he did not possess the potential to be the kind of game-changing quarterback every NFL team is trying to find.

But the way the Colts have approached this offseason is asking Richardson to do it right now, right away.

Even if they’re saying the opposite.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Colts put more pressure on Anthony Richardson with offseason approach