The Indianapolis Colts might have a quarterback problem.
Young quarterback Anthony Richardson has shown flashes of brilliance, but the bulk of his game action has been extremely disappointing, and his addiction to throwing interceptions is beginning to leave a sour taste in fans’ mouths. Now thanks to a statistical genius and NFL expert, there’s advanced data on just how concerning things with Richardson are.
“I’m not saying it’s time to pull the plug on Anthony Richardson. However, Richardson is as productive as Will Levis through 215 dropbacks, is the least accurate QB in the NFL since 2023, and has a long injury history,” Conor McQuiston tweeted on Thursday along with a graph of raw and projected EPA per dropback.
https://twittter.com/ConorMcQ5/status/1849447604100239470
And the data gets even worse.
“With accuracy, he is a pretty large negative outlier since 2023. His CPOE (-9.6%) is twice as low as the next closest QB (Easton Stick, -4.8%), and on par with Josh Allen’s rookie year through 200 dropbacks (-10.4%),” McQuiston followed up.
And according to the expert, the injury issues have a good chance of getting even worse.
“So if you’re an athlete like AR, and you can’t complete passes, how do you stay efficient? You build your game out of deep passes and QB run. That makes you hold onto the ball longer exposes you to more open field tackles. Not good for a player with AR’s injury history!”
Fans reacted to the troubling data.
“He’s even worse by the eye test than all the data which also says he’s one of the worst QBs ever,” one fan said on Twitter.
“He’s a guy who needs reps not to sit on the bench. But if it’s not better by the end of the season they will lose the locker room,” another fan added.
“Who could have possibly seen this coming? I’m shocked right now,” one fan added sarcastically.
It’s not very surprising that Richardson is trending in this direction, considering his massive struggles in college, but it’s still shocking to see just how bad he is by advanced metrics.
