Clueless Colts: Why starting Daniel Jones over Anthony Richardson has zero upside for QB-starved Indy

The Indianapolis Colts' quarterback competition is over. Coach Shane Steichen announced on Tuesday that Daniel Jones will be the team's starter for its Week 1 game against the Miami Dolphins, relegating former No. 4 overall pick Anthony Richardson to the backup role. 

"He's the starting quarterback for the season," Steichen said, via the Indianapolis Star. "I don't want to have a short leash on that."

We can be honest about this: Richardson wasn't good as Indy's starter, and his inability to beat out Jones in the offseason competition is an indictment of his progress through two-plus years. Still, this is an incredibly short-sighted decision with no real upside for the Colts organization. 

Jones has been in the league for six years. We've already seen the best and (mostly) worst of what he is as a quarterback. And the best is simply not very good. In the season that got people most excited about Jones, the Giants succeeded by taking almost everything off his plate and asking him to do little else other than check the ball down and operate in the designed run game. 

It resulted in a season where he threw 15 touchdowns and five interceptions but the Giants managed to go 9-7-1 because they were 8-4-1 in one-score games. The Giants then had to decide whether to pay to bring Jones back or let him walk in free agency, and they made a franchise-crippling mistake by giving him a four-year deal. They finally got out of the Jones business last season and now they're moving on to Jaxson Dart once the Russell Wilson era runs its course.

What is the best-case scenario for the Colts here? That Jones replicates what he did in New York and they make a run at a wild card spot, then get blasted in the opening round of the playoffs? What does that accomplish for anyone? Does it even save Steichen's and GM Chris Ballard's jobs? It probably shouldn't.

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Even if Jones shockingly performs at that 2022 level rather than the one he has maintained for the other five years of his career, there's no guarantee that the Colts actually make a playoff run in the AFC. And even if they do, they'll just be in the same situation the Giants were in three years earlier, where they have to decide whether they want to bring Jones back or move on to another quarterback. And given the way Richardson's development will have played out in such a scenario, why would the Colts trust Ballard and Steichen to identify and develop a quarterback of the future?

This decision also shines a light on how the Colts have mismanaged the Richardson era to begin with. They knew he was an incredibly raw prospect who didn't have much experience, and desperately needed reps in order to become the best version of himself as a player. But in two years, he's made just 15 starts. He got injured during his rookie season, but the Colts benched him in favor of Joe Flacco midway through last year before re-elevating him as the starter, and now they're benching him in favor of Jones. 

So they took a shot on this player with massive potential upside as the most athletic quarterback prospect in history, and then moved away from him at the earliest possible opportunity, twice -- and in favor of a then-39-year-old Flacco and now a castoff from a team that has desperately needed quarterback play for years. And now Jones apparently won't be subjected to the same type of short leash.

How does any of that make any sense, for any reason other than self-preservation for the two guys in charge of the operation? And again, is this even the smart self-preservation play? 

It seems like the best way for Ballard and Steichen to prove that they should be the guys to lead the organization forward is to make the bet on Richardson look like a smart one. Then, Ballard will have made a good pick and not a wasted one. And Steichen will have shown that he can tap into quarterback upside and mold even the rawest of prospects into a polished performer. 

Instead, they're bowing out on those opportunities in favor of trying to thread the smallest of all possible needles, and with a quarterback who has been perhaps even more unreliable than Richardson -- at least in terms of his play on the field. That's maybe the most maddening thing about this. 

Jones is not a safe, reliable option under center. If that were the case, it would be easier to spin this type of decision. But he's a volatile player with no real ceiling potential to make up for the tremendous downside. He has 47 interceptions and an 8.5% sack rate in 70 career games, and he has just 70 touchdown passes on the other side of the ledger. 

The downside potential of the two players is the same: inaccurate passing, sacks and turnovers combined with some positives as a rusher. (Though there are more potential rushing positives on Richardson's side than on Jones' due to the former's size and athleticism advantages.) With Richardson, though, at least there is the allure of the unknown, and due to his outrageous athleticism and arm strength, the potential to outweigh the negatives with extreme positives. That doesn't exist with Jones.

In the end, the most likely result here is that Jones does not succeed under center, and that the Colts at some point turn back to Richardson, who then doesn't succeed under center either. And then the Colts turn to new leadership in both the front office and at head coach. If that's the case, it will be hard to say that it wasn't deserved.