What Happened to Anthony Richardson Sr.? A Look at Why the Colts Benched QB After Daniel Jones’ Arrival

Indianapolis Colts quarterback Anthony Richardson Sr. has had quite the journey since entering the NFL. After being selected fourth overall in the 2023 NFL Draft, Richardson’s inconsistent performance led the Colts to turn to offseason acquisition Daniel Jones for 2025.

While Richardson had been serving as Jones’ backup this year, a Week 6 pre-game mishap changed his status. Let’s take a look at what happened to the young quarterback.

Try out PFSN’s FREE playoff predictor, where you can simulate every 2025-26 NFL season game and see how it all shakes out!

Why Is Anthony Richardson No Longer Daniel Jones’ Backup?

Heading into training camp, Richardson was still expected to retain the starting job, but it was clear he’d face legitimate competition from Jones. Coming off a rough season in New York and a midseason release, few anticipated Jones would ultimately emerge victorious in the quarterback battle. Surprisingly, he came out on top and took Richardson’s place.

During the pre-game warmups in Week 6, Richardson suffered a significant eye injury and was ruled out of the game. The Colts later placed him on the injured reserve after he underwent surgery to repair his orbital fracture.

Despite serving as Jones’ backup in 2025, Richardson appeared in two games this year as the Colts have been an offensive juggernaut. Indianapolis has the league’s best offense based on PFSN’s Offense Impact metric.

Richardson has gotten some garbage-time fourth-quarter snaps. He hasn’t done much in his two appearances, completing one of two passes for nine yards and rushing for times for -1 yards as the Colts have leaned heavily on the rushing game when he’s been in.

While there have been high hopes for Richardson since being drafted in 2023, injuries and inconsistency have highlighted his NFL career so far. He was limited to just four games during his rookie campaign. Then, between an early benching and an injury, he could only play in 11 games during the 2024 season.

Yet, in those 11 games, Richardson did not do nearly enough to quell concerns for his future as the Colts’ signal-caller. He completed 47.7% of his passes for 1,814 yards, eight touchdowns, and 12 interceptions. He’s a force on the ground, turning 86 carries into 499 yards and six touchdowns.

He’s shown incredible moments, placing passes with great accuracy down the field, but has struggled mightily on passes close to the line of scrimmage. Those are supposed to be the easy “give me” completions that allow an offense to maintain momentum down the field while they set up the homerun shots.

While Jones’ success this season puts Richardson’s spot on the roster in flux, Indianapolis general manager Chris Ballard said they had no plans to trade the young quarterback.

Colts Players’ Week 10 Fantasy Outlooks

Here is what PFSN’s Kyle Soppe wrote on the notable Colts players’ fantasy outlooks for the Week 10 matchup against the Atlanta Falcons:

Daniel Jones

We saw everything go right for Rodgers, and he was still unable to return much in the way of fantasy production.

The inverse of that was Daniel Jones, who turned the ball over five times, yet still managed some reasonable counting numbers (340 passing yards, TD, rush TD). The Falcons have dropped three straight games and profile as a decent get-right spot in Germany for the Colts.

We saw some spike games from Jones early in the season, and while I don’t think we get back to that level of production, we’ve seen Jones routinely finish in the QB8-12 range, and that’s sustainable.

Indianapolis wants to run things through Jonathan Taylor, and while that limits the upside of their QB, I think it also has a sneaky way of keeping his floor high.

Either the defense has to sell out to stop JT and is left vulnerable in the secondary, or Taylor is gashing them and putting this offense in a position to score with regularity. Neither of those is a poor outcome, and that means I think you can get away with playing him weekly.

Jonathan Taylor

Jonathan Taylor has five top-3 finishes at the position. It’s hard to overstate just how crazy that is in early November. The only thing crazier would be overreacting to the dud last week in Pittsburgh.

Taylor is touching the ball 20.4 times per game and is more likely to rip off a 10+ yard gain (14.6% of his attempts this season) than he is to be stopped at or behind the line of scrimmage (13.4%).

Even with the poor showing in Week 9, Taylor is on a borderline historic pace and slots as my RB1 in Germany this week in what could be a fun game with Bijan Robinson on the other side.

The late bye (next week) and the loss of a Houston matchup (Week 18) position Taylor to potentially be the most impactful December asset in our game. You’re lucky to have him on your roster: hold on tight and see if you can ride him to a title.

Tyler Warren

The fact that Tyler Warren can still catch five passes in a game where seemingly everything went sideways for the Colts is a nod to just how entrenched he is in what this offense wants to do.

In the loss at Pittsburgh, Warren finished with just 26 yards and, for the first time in his career, failed to catch a pass that gained 17+ yards. It was a mess for everyone attached to this offense, though their TE wasn’t far from turning in another top-10 week, as he appeared to be in position to score a touchdown on a short pass that Cam Hayward deflected before it had a chance to get to him.

His dud happening the same week as the Brock Bowers explosion might prompt some pivoting away from him as a Tier 1 option at the position, but I’m not in that camp. If anything, the Tucker Kraft injury removes one name from the weekly lock conversation at the TE position, thus making those still included in that tier even more valuable.

This is a blip on the radar. Rub some dirt on it and do the responsible thing. Play Warren without a second thought.

Michael Pittman Jr.

The Colts were largely a mess on Sunday, but Pittman recorded his first 100-yard performance of the season and earned 9+ targets for a third consecutive game.

At the beginning of this season, I was worried that this offense was going to function similarly to that of Green Bay’s: a viable passing game, but no one receiver you could rely on weekly.

That’s not the case. Pierce and Downs have had their moments, but five top-15 finishes for Pittman are more than enough to consider him the alpha of this high-functioning offense and a fantasy lineup lock.

Given the price you paid for him on draft day and the weekly positive contributions he’s made to your starting lineup, Pittman is in the running for most valuable drafted asset this year, and I don’t think that’s at all a hot take.

He could draw shadow coverage this week, and Daniel Jones is coming off a five-turnover game. In theory, that’s as bad a lead-in as you can have to a week, and yet, Pittman is still safely ranked inside of my top 20 at the position.