Previous stories mentioned that Daniel Jones had emerged as the favorite to be the Indianapolis Colts’ Week 1 starting quarterback this coming September after third-year pro Anthony Richardson was shut down from throwing because he experienced discomfort in his surgically-repaired shoulder in late May.
This past weekend, Richardson offered a positive update regarding his status for training camp while speaking with Zach Goodall of 247Sports.
“I’m all good,” Richardson said about his expected status for the start of training camp. “…Not really even a bump in the road. I feel like I tripped, I fell. Just got back up and hit the ground running again.”
Veteran Colts players are due to report for training camp on July 22. While Richardson has roughly one entire month to get his arm ready for summer practices, team reporter James Boyd of The Athletic suggested for a piece published on Monday that the Indianapolis starting job is essentially Jones’ to lose.
“Jones has already taken a significant lead in what was supposed to be a wide-open quarterback competition,” Boyd wrote.
The perception exists that Richardson’s inability to stay healthy across his first two seasons in the league frustrated people within the Colts to the point that at least some want to see what Jones can do as the club’s full-time starter. In total, multiple injury setbacks have limited Richardson to 15 starts since the Colts made him the fourth overall pick of the 2023 draft. Additionally, Indianapolis head coach Shane Steichen benched Richardson for a pair of contests last fall after the 23-year-old removed himself from a game because he was “tired.”
None of this means Jones will ever again play as well as he did when he guided the 2022 New York Giants to a road playoff win. He went 3-13 over his final 16 starts with the Giants, but the Colts seem to think the reset he completed while with the Minnesota Vikings late last season could help him revive his once-promising career.
Jones could cost himself the starting job by playing poorly during the preseason portion of the schedule that Indianapolis will open with a matchup at the Baltimore Ravens on Aug. 7. However, the fact that Boyd referred to Jones as QB1 “for now” may say plenty about how Richardson is currently viewed by the franchise that drafted him back in the spring of 2023.
