For Anthony Richardson and Daniel Jones, the competition starts now

It's make-or-break time for AR. The Colts need him to win the sweepstakes. Or he will be cast as a massive bust.

This is Anthony Richardson’s defining moment. This is the time when we’ll learn everything we need to learn about the Colts’ third-year quarterback. Nobody is going to give him the starting job this time, as was the case the last two years; this time, he’ll have to earn it in a mano-a-mano faceoff with Daniel Jones, a perfect foil in this quarterback derby.

Here’s the thing: We know what Jones can do. He’s played 70 games in the NFL, won 24 of them. He has proven he is a marginal starting quarterback. True, the Giants lacked receivers and had a porous offensive line, but Jones’ good moments were few and far between. Talk to people in New York, they’ll tell you he doesn’t respond well to on-field pressure. His accuracy is better than Richardson’s – isn’t everybody’s? -- but he doesn’t have the same kind of big-play potential.

Here’s the thing II: We don’t know what Richardson can do. We may think we do after two years of inconsistency and inaccuracy, but he played just 13 games in college, missed a good portion of his rookie year, got benched temporarily his second year and has left the Colts with far more questions than answers. This is his make-or-break season with this organization; he loses this sweepstakes, the Colts have no reason to keep him around. But the raw talent is unmistakable; he can propel the football 40 yards with a casual flick of the wrist and he can shed oncoming rushers and use his legs to make magic. Now it’s time for him to get it, to understand what it takes to be a franchise quarterback both on and off the field.

Let’s be honest about this: The Colts not only want Richardson to win the quarterback sweepstakes, they need him to beat out Jones. What happens if both men perform to the same standard?: Tie goes to the incumbent. It’s Richardson’s job to lose.

Again, Richardson may, in fact, be a bust. But now we’ll find out, for sure. The pressure is on. How will he deal with it?

“Man, it’s different,” Richardson said. “Everybody can look at the situation differently. I would just like to say I’m blessed honestly. I still have an opportunity to be in the NFL. I still have an opportunity to go out there and compete and win the job for the team. So I’m just blessed. I’m excited to continue to work and it kind of feels like I just got drafted again.”

Shane Steichen and Chris Ballard said there is no timetable for selecting a starter. This will be an ongoing process. A decision could be made quickly (unlikely) or it could take until the final preseason game before a decision is made at quarterback. This won’t be like Richardson’s rookie year, when Steichen named Richardson the starter over Gardner Minshew after the first preseason game.

“Who gives us our best chance to win? I think it'll be a great competition between both of them,” Ballard said Monday.

“Look, sometimes – I want to say this right. Like sometimes you’ve got to be bad before you can be good to play in this game. Sometimes you’ve got to struggle before you can be good, all right? And we’ve got two guys that have had some really strong flashes, and they've had some bad moments too, and that's OK. I think both of them will be better because of this, and I think the team will be better because of it. Competition brings out the best in everybody. To sit here a day before we even start the offseason…you don't want to begin with an end in mind. We're not going to do that. It's like the draft. You don't want to begin with an end in mind. You’ve just got to let things play out the way they should and compete. Who gives the team the best chance to win? If I’m a betting man, I mean at some point, both of them will help us.”

Richardson spoke to the local media Tuesday for the first time since the Colts acquired Jones and announced there would be an open-ended battle for the starting quarterback job. He looked and sounded like the same AR who arrived on the scene with so much promise. He smiled broadly as reporters asked him about his busy offseason and his uncertain future.

Asked how he has handled the benching and the criticisms that have come his way, Richardson was unmoved.

“I don’t take it personal,” he said. “If they see something that I need to improve on, I got to take it on the chin and just go improve. And that’s just with anything I do. Even if I’m scoring touchdowns or whatever, maybe I could have done something a little better on that play…So I definitely don’t take it personal. I definitely love working. I love getting better. So, whenever there’s an opportunity for me to go and chase that, why not do it?”

This is Richardson’s first fully healthy offseason. He’s put in the work, according to Ballard and Steichen. Now it’s time to produce, or it’s going to get ugly and it’s going to get ugly early. The first time Richardson air-mails one over Michael Pittman Jr.’s head, the fans are going to turn on Richardson. This is going to be a season-long process.

Speaking of Richardson, how much would it help the quarterback and this offense as a whole if the Colts drafted an elite tight end in the first round of Thursday’s draft? I’d like to see Ballard do something outside his comfort zone, just the way he did earlier this summer when he spent big bucks on two veterans, Cam Bynum and Charvarius Ward, who will solidify the once-porous secondary. Trade up and grab Penn State tight end Tyler Warren. The Colts cannot head into yet another season with the least productive tight end group in the entire league.

If they don’t move up for Warren, Michigan tight end Colston Loveland seems like an obvious selection.

I don’t see the Colts over-thinking this one. Granted, Ballard reminded us Monday that when you start selecting for needs, that’s where you get in trouble. But this is a selection where the need line and the best player available line intersect. The Colts have lots of needs – at right guard and linebacker, to be specific – but if you want to surround the quarterback with some weaponry, the best tight end available makes perfect sense.

Asked about the tight end class, Ballard responded. “It's good. No, it's a really good class, and I think at every level, but it's a good class…If you look at some of the better tight ends in this league, they come from everywhere. (Travis) Kelce was a three, (Mark) Andrews was a three, (George) Kittle was a five, like they come from every – (Brock) Bowers was a one last year. Like they come from everywhere. But it's a good class and we think there's some good depth in this class.”

The question is, who will throw to the Colts’ newly minted tight end (assuming, as I do, that they draft either Warren or Loveland)? The offseason begins now. May the best man win.