A week ago, Colts head coach Shane Steichen announced Anthony Richardson would return behind center for the remainder of the season, ending a two-week benching for the 2023 No. 4 overall pick.
In revealing the switch, Steichen offered some perspective on the career path Richardson was now following.
"Look, everyone has a different journey," Steichen said. "Everyone has a different way, development and how you go about the process. Everyone wants instant gratification right now and sometimes it doesn't work like that, and you fight through these times. I love Anthony. He's a great person. (I) got great faith in him and his abilities to be our franchise quarterback."
That's the thing about quarterback development: Every player, truly, has a different journey. The Patrick Mahomes plan – sitting for a year behind a veteran – worked for Patrick Mahomes. Peyton Manning played right from the start, set an NFL rookie record for interceptions, then steadily developed into Peyton Manning. It took Josh Allen until his third year with the Buffalo Bills to complete over 60 percent of his passes. Jayden Daniels and Bo Nix both started from Week 1 of this season and are putting together remarkable rookie seasons. Before the Colts benched and returned to Richardson, the Carolina Panthers did the same with Bryce Young, 2023's No. 1 overall pick.
But few players embody Steichen's different journey remark more than the guy who Richardson will face this weekend at Lucas Oil Stadium. The guy who's "good enough for (expletive) Detroit."
Jared Goff.
The 2016 No. 1 overall pick threw more interceptions than touchdowns as a rookie, and the Rams went 0-7 in his starts. Sean McVay arrived in Los Angeles a year later and Goff threw for 8,492 yards with 60 touchdowns and a passer rating of 100.8 over the next two seasons, with the Rams going 24-7 in those starts and reaching Super Bowl LIII.
Goff signed a lucrative contract extension with the Rams the offseason after that Super Bowl, but his play dipped the next two years, leading the Rams to ship him to Detroit in a blockbuster trade for Matthew Stafford. Had the Rams kept Goff, signs pointed to Los Angeles having an open competition – meaning Goff was not guaranteed to keep his job in 2021.
It wouldn't have been unfair to read the Rams' trade as kicking Goff to an NFL backwater – the Lions hadn't won a playoff game in three decades when the trade was completed – in acquiring a quarterback with whom they could (and would) win the Super Bowl. Instant trade analysis pieces pointed to the potential cap savings the Lions could get if they cut Goff after the 2022 season.
But Goff viewed being traded to Detroit in a positive light, as he told ESPN.com last year.
"I just put my head down and went to work," Goff said. "I knew it wouldn't be easy, I knew we had some things we had to clean up here, being the first year of a new staff which is never easy, but I was excited for the challenge. I saw it as an incredible opportunity. How lucky I am to be at the ground level of something that could be so big? ... That's how I approached it every day."
Goff has since revived his career in Detroit. The Lions are 30-14 with him starting over the last three seasons, and three quarterbacks have a higher passer rating than his 101.1 mark since Week 1 of 2022. He quarterbacked Detroit to the franchise's first two playoff wins since the early 1990's. Goff has completed at least 80 percent of his passes in five of Detroit's 10 games this season; he completed all 18 of his passes in a Week 4 win over the Seattle Seahawks and had a perfect 158.3 passer rating last weekend against the Jacksonville Jaguars.
"I mean, if he has three incompletions in a game," defensive coordinator Gus Bradley said, "that's a shocker to him, you know?"
This path certainly wasn't the one Goff charted when he signed that extension with the Rams after the 2018 season. But it's an example of how the right approach to overwhelmingly difficult circumstances can sometimes lead to a player emerging as an even better version of himself.
"People are going to go through some adversity and it's how you handle that adversity," Steichen said. "You've got to see the light at the end of the tunnel and keep grinding through it."
A two-week benching is not the same as a two-year dip in performance, then trade to one of the NFL's least-successful franchises (at least, until the last few years). But as Steichen said, every player has his own journey. It's probably going to involve some adversity along the way. The Colts saw Richardson respond to being benched with focus, determination and humility, which resulted in him earning back his QB1 job last week.
On Sunday against the New York Jets, Richardson completed 20 of 30 passes for a career high 272 yards with three total touchdowns, including the game-winner with 46 seconds left.
Now, going forward, Richardson will be tasked with continuing to be consistent behind the scenes during the week and in the spotlight on Sundays. But the quarterback he'll face in Week 12 offers a good reminder: Development is not linear, don't be quick to bury a player and everyone, indeed, takes a different journey through the NFL.
"Sometimes it takes time for young players to develop and going through the weekly process of the Monday through Saturday grind," Steichen said. "And so (Richardson's) learning that. He's learning it. It's a process. Like I said, everyone's got a different journey, a different story to their development.
"Hopefully we're going to look back at this moment and say, 'Shoot, remember that second year, where that went and where he's at now?'"
