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Colts going back to Richardson

Flacco headed back to bench

A year after winning Comeback Player of the Year, Joe Flacco is now heading back to the bench. The Colts have announced that Anthony Richardson is returning to the starting lineup. I guess he's learned enough from sitting the past two weeks.

Flacco hasn't played well; people saw him light up the Jaguars in his first full game and probably overreacted. HIs passing numbers declined after that one, and now the last two weeks, Flacco has thrown 4 interceptions and taken 7 sacks. For those kind of negative numbers, the Colts may as well stick with the guy who's a couple of decades younger with an NFL future.

While Richardson certainly has some fantasy value -- he'll run a lot, and he can hit some big plays on occasion -- it's a negative for the passing game and the Colts wide receivers. Richardson has thrown for 175 yards or fewer in each of his last three full games, and with only 1 touchdown. In his 10 career starts (a couple he got knocked out of, to be fair) he's averaging just 154 passing yards. But very much a work in a progress (that's why he was benched just two weeks ago).

And it's a positive for the defenses coming up, starting with the Jets this week. Maybe not as much as you'd expect -- Flacco, after all, has been throwing a lot of interceptions and taking a lot of sacks -- but Richardson has been bleeding that kind of production all along.

Over the past two seasons, there are 41 quarterbacks who have started at least eight games. The only guy who's thrown interceptions on a higher percentage of his passes than Richardson is Mac Jones. (Flacco also shows up really high in this area.)

Search tools at pro-football-reference.com used in compiling this table, which is sorted by interception percentage.

QUARTERBACKS, INTERCEPTIONS (2023-2024)
PlayerGSCmpAttYdsTDIntInt%
Mac Jones12244376225910143.7
Anthony Richardson101092171535783.7
Sam Darnold10207307243819113.6
Joe Flacco9236374278322133.5
Sam Howell17388612394621213.4
Ryan Tannehill81492301616473.0
Desmond Ridder13260404291013123.0
Will Levis15250403268215112.7
Jalen Hurts26516773583435202.6
Daniel Jones16324501297910132.6
Jordan Love24519819597947212.6
Patrick Mahomes25617908639139232.5
Josh Allen27575878658746222.5
Tua Tagovailoa22501716577935182.5
Brock Purdy25489722673443182.5
Jared Goff26580846665546212.5
Joshua Dobbs12262417246413102.4
Trevor Lawrence25538838602032202.4
Gardner Minshew II20453711480621172.4
Bryce Young21407680369715162.4
Geno Smith24556841618431192.3
Matthew Stafford24540843622733182.1
Aidan O'Connell1226542526731492.1
Baker Mayfield27607910654952192.1
Kirk Cousins18443644496535132.0
Aaron Rodgers1121935222581572.0
Dak Prescott25595876649447171.9
Zach Wilson112213682271871.9
Justin Fields19333530366821101.9
Bo Nix1020632419681061.9
Deshaun Watson1324238722631271.8
Caleb Williams91782941785951.7
Russell Wilson1834753238073291.7
Derek Carr24499732537236121.6
Kyler Murray1836754438572281.5
Joe Burrow20490723498139101.4
C.J. Stroud25526828647935111.3
Kenny Pickett122023272075641.2
Lamar Jackson2650674563474891.2
Justin Herbert2245669750233181.1
Jayden Daniels101802622147920.8

The Jets, as discussed some yesterday, need to actually show up and be invested in the proceedings this week. But I like their odds of putting up some production against the NFL's A Richardson.

--A Richardson

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