Ballard 'encouraged' by Richardson's performance
Indianapolis Colts' general manager Chris Ballard unpacks his evaluation on Anthony Richardson, mentioning how he was "encouraged" by the 24-year old's preseason performance.
Video Transcript
I gotta ask you this because I've been one that's gone, been saying, "Hey, Anthony Richardson, stay where you are.
Just be the backup in Indianapolis.
It's the perfect spot," all that.
I thought he looked I thought it was really encouraging how he looked in preseason game number one.
I know he was critical of himself, but I was encouraged.
So g- you know, give us your thoughts on Richardson and where he's at right now.
No, really encouraged, and was encouraged by The game didn't exactly start out great for him either.
You know, he threw the pick early that, you know, kinda went up through the receiver's hands, and he had the fumble on the long run.
But where I thought that you saw the strides was he didn't press, and he just kept playing and ended up getting some really good completions.
I thought the two minute, I think we had about 38 seconds left to give us a chance for a, a long field goal at the end of the half when we were backed up, I thought was in, was, showed excellent poise and progress.
So really, really happy with him.
You know, you know, he's only 24 years old.
That's right.
Yeah, that's crazy.
And, you know, it, it's, you know, we It's not his fault we drafted him.
We drafted him.
Right.
And he was a young He was young, and we knew it.
And so it's our job to keep developing and, and get the most out of Anthony and make him the best player we can, he can be.
And same thing for Riley.
We, we think a lot of Riley also.
He didn't play as well last week.
He'll get some more run this week early in the game, so we'll see how he does, but it's been a great competition between those two.
Chris, you know this, like, competition brings out the best in everybody.
It rises all boats.
And I would tell you, Dan would tell you, even last year with him and Anthony competing- Yeah you know, I think it helped him.
So I, I, I think anytime you get in a competitive situation, it gets stressful and the media makes a big deal about it, but that's what our game's about.
I mean, like, you can't get better, if you're not being pushed by somebody next to you.
I hear that.
Gotta have the hot poker there.
And, I know you gotta get out the pri- And Richardson looked like he changed and tweaked his throwing motion.
That the thing that, that had jumped out to me more than anything.
It was just a little quicker and tighter.
I think Yeah.
And he's Look, he's always 'Cause he's such a Like, he's a really natural passer, and it's I know it doesn't always show up from an accuracy and a numbers standpoint, but as he's gone through his career, he's continued to work fundamentally on how he throws the football.
And like in '24, he was coming off a shoulder injury, which is tough.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, that's not always the easiest situation because now your mechanics get changed a little bit, so you spend all year kinda tweaking and working on it.
So no, encouraged, happy for him, happy for the work that he's put in.
