Sports
Anthony Richardson’s benching goes far beyond his play: ‘A fascinating management dilemma’
The Indianapolis Colts’ decision to replace young franchise quarterback Anthony Richardson with 39-year-old Joe Flacco offers a window into a poorly understood NFL world.
The decision makes no sense on the surface because Richardson has started only 10 games, including six this season, and the variance in his play was predictable. The organization at every level knew when drafting Richardson at No. 4 in 2023 that he would alternate between sensational plays and confounding ones while hopefully figuring out how to play the position after starting only 13 games in college.
The team has a 5-5 record in Richardson’s starts, better than the 4-6 average for the last 130 quarterbacks making their first 10 starts, per TruMedia. Richardson’s statistics through 10 games mirror those for Buffalo Bills star Josh Allen to the same point of Allen’s career.
These seemingly logical touchstones distract from the reality facing the Colts. They are not important parts of the equation Indianapolis is trying to solve.
“What a fascinating management dilemma to be in,” a former executive from one of the Colts’ division rivals said.
Richardson taking himself out of the team’s Week 8 game against the Houston Texans and then explaining casually afterward that he was tired and needed a breather left the organization with an excruciating choice: bench Richardson, or lose even more credibility with a locker room that already knows the offense runs more efficiently with Flacco in the lineup.
Seemingly every former NFL coach and player with a platform has weighed in to express just how profoundly unbelievable it was for an NFL quarterback, as the face of the franchise, to casually take a break in the middle of a hard-fought divisional game.
GO DEEPER
No tapping out: Colts QB Anthony Richardson has hard lesson to learn from the bench
“I can’t even wrap my mind around the fact that you are asking out of a game,” former 12-year offensive lineman Damien Woody said in his role as an ESPN analyst.
Woody’s reaction and the many others like it reflect long-established NFL sensibilities that Richardson might only now be beginning to grasp.
“That position, rightfully or wrongfully, defines your whole team,” a former high-ranking executive with extensive NFL playing experience said. “And if he is defined as that guy that raises his hand and comes out when it gets tough, you can’t have that.”
Those unfamiliar with NFL team and locker room dynamics will point to comparisons such as the 10-start comps for Richardson and the Bills’ Allen, suggesting Indianapolis is sacrificing the future for short-term gains. They don’t see any upside in riding Flacco to what might wind up being, at best, a short-lived playoff run.
First 10 starts: Allen vs. Richardson
QB | Allen | Richardson |
---|---|---|
W-L |
4-6 |
5-5 |
Cmp |
146 |
109 |
Att |
279 |
217 |
Cmp% |
52.3% |
50.2% |
Pass yds |
1,776 |
1,535 |
Yds/att |
6.4 |
7.1 |
TD-INT |
7-11 |
7-8 |
Rating |
64.2 |
68.8 |
Sack rate |
7.9% |
6.9% |
EPA/pass play |
-0.07 |
-0.06 |
Rushes |
76 |
66 |
Rush yds |
510 |
378 |
Yds/rush |
6.7 |
5.7 |
Rush TD |
6 |
5 |
Those on the inside see things differently. To them, the Colts decided the price for leaving Richardson in the lineup under these circumstances was higher than the price for replacing him. They chose to save the locker room now, in hopes of saving Richardson later, because they understand the tricky dynamics at work.
“If you enable him now, you lose everything,” the former high-ranking executive said, “because you sent the wrong message to your team and you sent the wrong message to him, that his behavior is acceptable. He will never recover from it.”
Can Richardson recover now?
“It’s really hard to develop a quarterback who is so far behind in learning to play the position that he’s in frantic mode all the time,” a personnel evaluator said. “This kid is truly a project more than a developmental player.”
Those who believed that about Richardson entering the draft believe it even more now. But if there was a decent chance Richardson might develop, that could still be the case.
“Maybe I’m being naïve,” the former high-ranking executive said, “but I think it is doable, and if you do it, you’re better than ever.”
In other words, if Richardson does possess the qualities required for him to become a consistent performer and true professional at what might be the most challenging position in professional team sports, those qualities will prevail in the end. But none of that will matter if he learns early on that it’s OK to do what he did as the face of the Colts’ franchise.
“The players are the smartest ones in the building,” a coach from another team said. “They know how hard he is practicing. They know how much extra film he is watching. They know how much he cares. They know it’s weird for a quarterback to step out of a game, and they know it’s weird to say, ‘I needed to take a little break,’ and not act like anything is wrong. They know he is probably not ready to play.”
Richardson is not the first highly drafted young quarterback to get benched early in his career, but he is probably the first to lose his job under these specific circumstances. The Colts have denied that Richardson’s opt-out against the Texans played any role in the decision to bench him, which is understandable for them to say, but not believable.
“If you cover for him, you can do more damage,” an executive from another team said. “Those players know. The fact that they saw it on TV, if you tried to cover for him, you risk dividing your team.”
And so the Colts’ quarterback adventures continue following Andrew Luck’s surprise 2019 retirement. What happened this week is the latest in a chain reaction of unplanned events:
• Luck retires, shocking the organization.
• Convinced the roster was ready to win, the Colts cycled through veteran stopgaps Philip Rivers, Carson Wentz and Matt Ryan, only to lose ground.
• As frustration mounted, owner Jim Irsay snapped, replacing coach Frank Reich with former player Jeff Saturday before eventually hiring current coach Shane Steichen.
• General manager Chris Ballard, hired in 2017 and under increasing pressure to solve the post-Luck QB riddle, took a risky swing on Richardson despite the QB’s thin resume.
• Steichen’s job was to maximize Richardson, but in doing so last season, the quarterback kept getting hurt. Indy sought to find the right usage balance this season, but Richardson got hurt anyway, opening the door for Flacco, who shined in relief, adding to the tension.
Then came the tap-out in Houston, and here we are again, with the Colts in turmoil at the position where stability is everything, and with Richardson’s career somehow at a crossroads after only 10 starts.
It’s a rough spot to be in. Even if Richardson gains a fuller understanding of his professional obligations, he still must prove he can stay healthy and pass accurately enough to win consistently.
“If you salvage him, you’ve nailed it,” the former high-ranking executive said. “You have brought him back from nowhere. He is better than ever then. He has seen how bad it could be and it makes him appreciate everything about being the guy.”
(Photo: Tim Warner / Getty Images)
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Sports
Meet Armando Villarreal, the man behind college football’s coolest helmets
Armando Villarreal was hanging onto the back of a garbage truck in his hometown of Imperial, Neb., when his phone rang. He quickly hollered to the driver to hit the brakes. Villarreal hopped off and answered the incoming call from Brad Haley, business manager of Schutt Sports, a company that manufactures football equipment. That conversation, which took place six years ago, altered both the trajectory of Villarreal’s life and his artistic career.
If that call goes to voicemail and Villarreal forgets about it, he likely never leaves his municipal job working for Imperial — a tiny city with a population of less than 2,000 in rural southwest Nebraska.
Luckily, he did pick up and listened to Haley’s unusual pitch: to airbrush a specialty helmet for Mississippi State in honor of alum Sonny Montgomery, a World War II veteran and former Mississippi state politician. Villarreal and Haley first met at a retail summit in Las Vegas years earlier, when Villarreal was working for a California-based art production company contracted by professional teams and leagues.
Since then, Villarreal has become a leader in this specialized field. Illinois’ leather helmets honoring legend Red Grange in last month’s game against Michigan were arguably his finest work.
“So iconic as far as the history of football.”
Individually hand-painted, each helmet being worn in the Memorial Stadium Rededication Game went through an intricate process to be ready for game day on October 19th. #Illini // #HTTO // #famILLy pic.twitter.com/CxaZlPR449
— Illinois Football (@IlliniFootball) August 7, 2024
Villarreal has done individually airbrushed helmets for 12 programs since 2018, including Utah, UCF, Maryland, BYU, Michigan and Tennessee. A former member of the U.S. Army Reserve who was deployed both to Kosovo and Iraq in the early 2000s, Villarreal did his best to balance his city job with airbrushing hundreds of helmets each year — until 2022 when the demand for his artistry became overwhelming.
Typically, equipment staffers at various programs will reach out to Schutt Sports, which then contacts Villarreal with the school’s pitch. Schutt handles the orders of however many helmets are needed, and they’re eventually shipped to Villareal’s home in Imperial.
“I just have to make sure it looks good on TV,” he said.
Schools will have their own graphic designers send mock-ups to Villarreal. The tricky part is wrapping an image around the entirety of the helmet. Some ideas are simple and easier to apply, such as UCF’s moon design honoring the university’s historical ties to the U.S. space program, or Tennessee’s helmet honoring the Smoky Mountains.
There was one project so intimidating that he initially turned it down multiple times. In 2021, Utah’s director of equipment, Cody Heidbreder, asked Villarreal if he could paint helmets commemorating the passing of Utah players Ty Jordan in 2020 and Aaron Lowe in 2021.
(Video courtesy of Greg Gosse)
“I think I told them four times I couldn’t do it,” Villarreal said. “Cody just kept on me and kept on me. Finally, I said we’ll do it. That was the year I quit my day job because it was so much. It was about six hours per helmet.”
Programs usually come to Schutt and Villarreal with ideas in November and December to prepare for the following season. Right now, he’s finishing Utah’s speciality helmet for its Nov. 23 matchup against Iowa State in Salt Lake City.
“As soon as that’s done, we’ll start working on designs for next year,” Villarreal said.
Helmets sent to Imperial from Schutt will arrive anywhere from May to June each spring.
Villareal receives just the “shell” of the helmet — sans facemask and chin strap — and immediately works on sanding each one down, with the help of his wife and three children. In order for the paint and design to stick properly, the texture of the helmet needs to be much rougher, without as much gloss.
A typical order generally consists of around 150 helmets per team. Some schools order more because they plan on selling or auctioning them off as collectible items. Illinois, Villarreal said, has received such fanfare over the leather helmet that the athletic department is considering a special order after the season.
It takes a minimum of two months to complete an entire order and have it shipped back to the school. The Illinois order took an estimated two hours per helmet, while the Utah helmets that will debut against Iowa State later this month took about four hours each.
“When you’re doing 155 helmets, the 32nd one has to look like the 76th one and the 120th one,” Villarreal said. “They all have to be pretty similar.”
Villarreal occupies space in an old shop his dad uses, and he also relies on his father-in-law, who owns a welding and fabrication shop in town. That’s where Villarreal spends hours with a paint respirator meticulously applying the airbrush design on helmet after helmet.
The business is gaining so much popularity that he and his wife, Lora, are thinking about building their own studio and adding additional manpower if demand keeps climbing. Once upon a time, after returning from his tours of duty, Villarreal was in Florida airbrushing motorcycles. Now he’s at the forefront of college football uniform ingenuity.
“I’ve got to figure out how many we actually do, because ultimately it depends on the design,” he said. “The trouble is, the players don’t report until spring. And then they’ve got to get their helmets fitted. So there’s a tight window in there where I think, how can we do this? How many can we get done?
“This leather helmet for Illinois just exploded. I don’t know what the future holds. There’s going to be a pretty big learning curve in the next year or two.”
Maybe, but that doesn’t mean he can’t take a break and enjoy it. Recently EA Sports College Football 25 updated its video game options to include Illinois’ throwback leather helmets.
“The little kid in me is freaking out,” he recently posted on X. “I’m freaking out!”
The newest addition to The Game. #Illini // #HTTO // #famILLy pic.twitter.com/LfEkTSHPWN
— Illinois Football (@IlliniFootball) October 24, 2024
(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; All photos courtesy of Armando Villarreal)
Sports
Jalen Milroe rushes for 4 touchdowns, nearly 200 yards as No. 11 Alabama dominates No. 15 LSU
Jalen Milroe owns property in Death Valley after his dominance in Baton Rouge.
The Alabama quarterback rushed for four touchdowns as No. 11 Alabama walloped the 15th-seeded LSU Tigers, 42-13, on Saturday Night.
Alabama came to play from the jump, as Milroe ran for a 39-yard score on their first drive of the night. After allowing a field goal, it was Justice Haynes who pushed through a pile for a one-yard touchdown. The Tigers would only add another field goal before the half, but Milroe would find the end zone again and take a 21-6 lead into the locker room.
LSU’s first drive of the second half was almost flawless, as they got inside the opposing five-yard line – but Garrett Nussmeier threw a costly interception in the end zone, and the Crimson Tide did not let the opportunity go to waste. An LSU facemask penalty gave Bama even more help than they already did, and Milroe eventually scampered for a 19-yard touchdown to make it a 28-6 lead.
After forcing a punt, Bama got the ball back early in the fourth quarter, and that is where Milroe’s biggest blow came. He found some holes and took off for a 72-yard touchdown, making it a 35-6 Crimson Tide lead.
To put a cherry on top of it all, the Alabama defense didn’t allow a touchdown until there were just 11 seconds in the game.
OLE MISS FANS STORM FIELD WITH TIME REMAINING ON CLOCK, PROMPTING DELAY TO GAME’S END
In all, Milroe rushed for 185 yards on his 12 carries – 33% of his carries found the end zone.
The loss is a crusher for LSU, who had entered the game ranked 15th in the country. Thus, they will now need a lot of help to even think about the College Football Playoff.
Bama, meanwhile, has now won two straight after losing two of their previous three – they had even squandered a 28-point lead to Georgia before that losing stretch, and the fraud alert was on.
However, Saturday’s dominance against their longtime SEC rival was a decent reminder that they are not going away lightly. – with losses by No. 3 Georgia and No. 4 Miami, they should find themselves in the top-10 in next week’s rankings.
The Crimson Tide (7-2, 4-2) will host Mercer next week, while LSU (6-3, 3-2) will head to Gainesville for a date with Florida.
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Sports
Clippers hold off late surge by Toronto to pick up fourth consecutive win
The Clippers have played four games in seven days. In 10 games this season, they’ve played three sets of back-to-backs.
Before Saturday’s game against the Toronto Raptors, Clippers coach Tyronn Lue told his players they can’t afford to buy into their circumstances.
Despite blowing a 14-point lead, the Clippers put Lue’s words into action and overcame James Harden and Norman Powell missing key free throws down the stretch in a 105-103 victory at the Intuit Dome that extended their winning streak to four games.
Harden had 24 points but missed a free throw with 28.7 seconds left, forcing the Clippers to cling to a two-point lead.
Powell had 24 points but missed a free throw with 35.5 seconds left. He then missed another one with 8.1 seconds left that kept it a one-possession game.
But the Clippers hung on after Toronto’s Jakob Poeltl missed a nine-foot tip shot with 4.1 seconds left.
Before the game, Lue encouraged his players to continue playing stellar defense and to do a better job of taking care of the basketball.
“Just being mentally tough,” Lue said. “Can’t give into fatigue. You can’t give into the schedule. Just take it one game at a time.”
Though the Clippers are one of the top defensive teams in the NBA, Lue said they would be better if they did not allow transition points off turnovers.
Entering Saturday, the Clippers have allowed an average of 106.7 points per game, the second-best mark in the NBA. The Clippers rank fourth in defensive rating (107.9).
But the Clippers also are giving up 16.3 turnovers per game, tied with Toronto for the second-worst mark in the league entering Saturday.
“If we just take care of the basketball, I think a lot of nights we’ll be able to win games because we’re getting shots on goals,” Lue said. “But if you are having 19, 20 turnovers every night, it’s hard to win those games because your defense has to be elite, which it has been so far. But we can’t continue to lay our hat on our defense every single night and turn the ball over, letting teams get out, get easy points in transition. … If we get to that 10, 12 range, I mean, we are a different team.”
The Clippers turned the ball over 12 times against the Raptors.
And they built a double-digit lead for the 10th straight game — and once again, the Clippers let that lead slip.
Etc: Lue was asked if Kawhi Leonard, who hasn’t played this season because of inflammation in his right knee, would travel with the Clippers on their three-game trip that opens Monday against Oklahoma City. He was short with his answer.
“Uh, no,” Lue said.
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