Musings of an Old Sportwriter

A compendium of thoughts on Anthony Richardson's lack of game action, the Guardian Caps, Jim Irsay's ramblings and other stuff.

For the life of me, I can’t understand why Shane Steichen wouldn’t play Anthony Richardson and most of his starters in the preseason’s second game, this one at home against the Arizona Cardinals.

Just for the heck of it, I went back and checked the preseason numbers for Peyton Manning and Tom Brady, and while preseason stats are not available during the early portions of their careers (1998-2003), check out how many passes they threw in those exhibition games from 2004 and beyond.

In 2004, Manning threw 28 preseason passes.

2005 – 47

2006 – 39

2007 – 40

2008 – none

2009 – 31

2010 – 51

And the list goes on. Every preseason, even after he was fully established, Manning threw 30 to 50 passes per preseason.

Brady?

44 in 2004…32 in 2005…54 in 2006…48 in 2007…and the list goes on from there. Up until the final few years of his career in Tampa, Brady consistently got his work in the preseason.

Now consider Anthony Richardson.

As a rookie coming off a college career that spanned all of 13 games, Richardson played two preseason games last year and threw 29 passes. This year, he threw four times (completing two) in the preseason opener against the Denver Broncos. He sat out Saturday’s game against the Cardinals, as did most of the starters, or at least the ones not named Nick Cross. You would think – or at least I would think – that you’d like to see Richardson work against defenses that are trying to take his face off, defenses that are not constrained by Richardson’s red no-contact jersey. Live bullets, as they indelicately say.

He will play a half against the Bengals Thursday in Cincinnati, but he’s still going to end up with very little game-day experience once the regular season begins at home against the Houston Texans.

Practice is great and joint practices are even better, and I’m assuming the reason for the lack of preseason game-day work is due to the work Richardson and his mates received in this week’s joint practices against the Cardinals. But again, nobody is trying to knock him into tomorrow when he’s wearing the red jersey.

Again, the Colts are placing a ton of pressure on Richardson, who is still a rookie for all intents and purposes. He’s gotten plenty of mental reps in the past year, but he hasn’t spent a lot of time behind center, facing down an angry defense. Wouldn’t you want him to spend more time on task? I know joint practices are enormously important – Shane Steichen suggested recently that his team derives more benefits from joint practices than they do preseason games – but at some point, I want to see what Richardson can do in a semi-real game.

By now, it’s abundantly clear NFL teams do not need (or use) three preseason games to make their roster-cut determinations, and in time, it’s fair to assume we’ll be looking at an 18-game regular-season with two preseason games. Not only are three games unnecessary for NFL teams, especially now with all the joint practices, but it’s an ever-greater ripoff for fans who pay full price to watch third-stringers.

I know we’re living in a new age of load management and the rest, but if I have the chance to get Richardson some work against real defenses, I’m going to seize that opportunity. Alas, times have changed.