ESPN Analyst Sounds Off on Colts' Anthony Richardson
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Four games is a small sample. For Indianapolis Colts quarterback Anthony Richardson, he's only played three contests.
Even still, it's hard not to be excited about Richardson's play through about a quarter of a season.
ESPN NFL analyst Dan Orlovsky has been particularly impressed at the way Richardson has played in the early part of the 2023 season. He raved about the rookie quarterback while appearing on The Pat McAfee Show on Tuesday.
"Watching him make these throws, guys. The accuracy is all over his tape," Orlovsky said when commenting on the consensus biggest weakness for Richardson during his NFL draft evaluation.
"The ability to make some of the special plays, he threw a ball to Pittman to the end zone that wasn't caught that I think Pittman can catch, that is just rare. It's special," Orlovsky continued. "It's Patrick Mahomes. It's Josh Allen. It's Lamar Jackson.
"The two-point play is special. The go-route that he threw while he's getting dragged to the ground by Aaron Donald is special, rare talent."
Richardson has only completed 56.9% of his passes and averaged 6.7 yards per pass. Those are pedestrian statistics in the box score.
But there's nothing pedestrian about Richardson's play from a viewer's perspective. Clearly, he's passing Orlovsky's eye test.
Comparisons to Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson shouldn't be taken lightly. Quite frankly, those kinds of comparisons for Richardson should make Colts fans flat-out giddy.
The former quarterback also identified two things that Richardson needs to continue to work on the rest of the season to continue developing.
"How quickly can he get the ball out, and doing that even more so and then I really want to see over the next three months how much he can grow and develop getting from No. 2 and 3 and 4," Orlovsky said. "He does a pretty good job of getting from 1 to 2. How quickly can he get from 2 to 3 to 4 as defenses start to take it away from him."
Orlovsky isn't the only ESPN analyst impressed with Richardson. Despite losing in Week 4 to fall to 2-2, the Colts moved up three spots in ESPN's NFL Power Rankings.
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