Colts offensive coordinator Jim Bob Cooter didn't see Anthony Richardson's right foot slide out from under him at the top of his dropback in the first quarter of Sunday's season opener against the Houston Texans.
Cooter did notice something within the timing of the play was a little off, but then he saw Richardson's pass rocketing through the air and into the waiting hands of wide receiver Alec Pierce for a 60-yard touchdown. It wasn't until later that Cooter saw Richardson slip, re-gain his balance, slide away from pressure and light the fuse on a throw head coach Shane Steichen said was the best he's ever seen.
Steichen wasn't trafficking in hyperbole, by the way. Just look at the view Colts Productions captured of Richardson's pass from the catwalk at Lucas Oil Stadium:
There's more to this throw, though, than how pretty it looked while covering a remarkable 65 yards in the air. That Richardson slipped and was pressured on the play – and then still made that throw – was a marker of something important about the Colts' offense:
Even when it's not perfect, Richardson can still conjure up an explosive play. Plenty of other quarterbacks would've immediately moved off Pierce's deep route and looked for a checkdown just to get a pass off. Richardson did not.
And that knowledge of what Richardson can do – which the Colts' coaching staff already had – opens up areas of the playbook plenty of other quarterbacks can't access.
"Anthony gives us the freedom to draw up a whole lot of different pass plays with very little restriction," Cooter said. "That's very freeing for a coaching staff. I think it's exciting for his teammates, right? It's exciting for the receivers and tight ends and backs that – there's not a restriction on some sort of movement play or play-action play or any of those little schematic things that we all do. There's no restriction for us.
"We just try to draw up the good ones and try to give him a chance to sort of have some space to launch that thing. Our guys upfront, I think take pride in protecting him and giving him that shot. He's not going to slip on all these things – then watch out, you know? But it was really fun to watch. Like I said, for us as a coaching staff, that we got some good Expo markers and good whiteboards back there, and we don't have a whole lot of restriction with what we're drawing up."
