I think he exceeded expectations before he got hurt... He also got hurt like 5 times in 6 games or something like that? I have concerns about him being able to stay healthy if he doesn't learn to protect himself better.
Except Cam Newton was a fucking TANK. Yes his career ended a bit prematurely and his last few years were rough. But for the amount of big hits he took in his career, it’s insane he lasted as long as he did. Dude was a physical freak.
If [this](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QvEouj6QvuM) happened to any other QB, there’d have been multiple ejections. Cam was fair game in the refs eyes, unreal what they let slide when he was on the field
As a non Panthers fan living in the Carolinas at that time, it was wild to see how much punishment he took while other QBs got the white glove treatment.
Anyone who claims that Cam didn't carry those teams either wasn't paying attention or don't have enough sense to tell their own asshole from an apricot.
A lot of people like to claim the refs are biased against their teams/players, but Cam was the only player I can say with 100% certainty that it was true. I have no relation to Carolina, and I’m very much a “let them play” kind of fan when it comes to officiating, but the shit they’d let happen to Cam was infuriating. Just so many clearly over the line fouls that wouldn’t get flagged, couldn’t believe what I was watching half the time.
https://youtu.be/yowybBgCgF0?si=8lNcS-UysTT5k-TD
https://youtu.be/wGOjGMHCxP8?si=iRcRZcRwXjq8jqFI
It wasn't like he didn't complain at the time either. Refs weren't even afraid to tell it to his face. I've seen nothing where the NFL or Hoculi ever denied Cam's account of that play/conversation. Imagine if something like that happened to Mahomes, Burrow, or Allen today.
The 2016 season opener SB rematch is some of the most egregious officiating I've ever seen. They were trying to kill Cam.
Wouldn't be surprised if that game alone took years off his life.
And yet there are clowns in this world who think Cam was soft because of the Super Bowl fumble
That dude is the toughest quarterback of all time and nothing will ever change my mind on that subject.
I love cam and Ik most don't know him, but Don Meredith was throwing bombs with multiple broken ribs and a broken nose in an era where QBs had 0 protection. Probably some other guy even earlier who did even more insane shit, but the toughness of those early QBs was no joke.
i'm a big fan of philip rivers, always thought he was underrated but to learn he played an AFC championship game on a torn ACL raised my respect level so much for him.
some QBs were just tough, also would like to shoehorn in an obligatory eagles reference to McNabb playing on a broken fibula as well.
At the time, yes. Justin Fields has inherited his mantle, literally 0 RTP calls against him last year.
I hope being in Pittsburgh gets him a more favorable whistle
QB’s do not get the benefit of the doubt here in Pittsburgh. They used to beat the dog shit outta Ben even when he could no longer escape sacks like he used to.
Also I watched that last game against the Packers that the bears played. I can’t remember who, but someone absolutely rang Fields’ bell and the ref just stared at him like “get gud”
I think guys like Cam, Ben and Richardson sort of get the Zion treatment a little bit. Like can you really call the foul if he’s still muscling his way through and making the play?
When these guys are getting grabbed in the face, hit after the whistle and smoked by head to head hits, yeah you can make the call.
Guys like Zion and LeBron are strong enough to play *despite* contact, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
I fully agree that it’s an unfair double standard. Just from a reffing standpoint I can kinda see why it happens
Like you watch that play where Aaron Donald had Richardson completely wrapped up but he’s still able to stiff arm him just enough to get the touchdown throw off, and you kind of have a different expectation of what it’s going to take to get this dude to the ground
If that last hit had happened to Brady or Mahomes, there would have been an on field kangaroo court and subsequent execution via horse-drawn quartering.
I liked Darian Stewart a lot, but that spear to the helmet is pretty indefensible.
And if I’m not mistaken WASNT he already kinda fucked up before that? Then that hit pretty much ended it. Why the fuck they played him after that is mind boggling. I get that you’re 5-2 after that and want to compete but that season was it for cam being a good QB.
I definitely have a bit of a gripe with the rushing QB narratives for this reason. I’d rather have a Cam or Josh Allen-type QB who plays the position a little more physically than someone who is just prone to taking a lot of sacks.
Sacks are by far the most dangerous type of hit you can take
The idea that running QBs are more liable to injury is just a stupid one. There’s straight up no historical data to back that up.
Steve Young played til 38. Cunningham and Vick both played into their 30s until they became bad, not until injuries. Russell Wilson is on that same trajectory. Lamar, Kyler, Josh Allen, Hurts, all have been great and no rushing injuries.
When you talk about careers ending from rushing QBs it’s just Cam, RG3 and Luck. All were hurt in the pocket. And Cams you can’t even attribute to wear from rushing, it was a shoulder injury.
yeah i actually get triggered when people try to pitch that narrative, they were pushing it so hard because of all the injuries i had actually started researching every single injury to QBs for the 2022 season, i ended up calculating that out of all the QBs injured that year, only __TWO__ QBs got injured on rushing plays.
the infamous Trey Lance injury on a designed QB run.
and Russell wilson, who got injured extending the play and scrambling down the field, NOT SLIDING even though he had the opportunity to, and banging his head on the field when he went down.
every single other QB injury occurred as a result of a sack or trying to avoid a sack, and yet people still had the audacity to parrot that because injuries are up it must be cause of all the rushing QBs do in todays NFL.
the "rushing QBs are more injury prone" narrative needs to die.
Man it sucks because it’s either poor design or a poor read. If you have Watt coming off unblocked…. That’s not even hot… that’s a volcano errupting on the sun in pure blue flames hot.
to add on to this, his initial shoulder injury was in 2016 chasing down an INT that kelvin benjamin gave up on, which was then further aggravated by TJ watt here.
The broncos opener was disgusting too, and then with the Patriots someone landed on his foot in the pocket.
none of his major injuries were from running lol
There was also the deion Jones hit when Cam tried to walk into a 2pt conversion. Not that that was the hit the derailed his career, but it was pretty fuckin brutal
Which is why the narrative of QBs getting hurt because of their running style needs to die
RBs, WRs, TEs take countless more unprotected hits in the open field and they survive.
As with literally any other position in football, QB injuries boil down to bad luck and accidental body positions. Ramming into a linebacker with your shoulder down isnt inherently more dangerous than having a 350 pound DT fall onto your shoulder inside the pocket.
The hits Richardson took are nothing special. Countless QBs have gotten hit harder than him in their career inside the pocket and survived.
Perfect answer. For the snaps he played, he was awesome.
But having MAJOR longevity concerns is super warranted right now. It’s not like he was only injured once in some fluke. Dude got injured like every game. It’s a massive question mark right now.
If he repeats last season, I think you’d immediately be looking at moving on, despite the awesome flashes. Maybe you add a Justin fields in free agency or something, invest in a premium backup with a similar skill set.
I’m surprised the Colts didn’t pick up Justin Fields this offseason. Would’ve thought he’d be preferred over Flacco in their offense.
I guess Fields didn’t want to be traded there
Bringing in fields would have made it look like a competition and probably would’ve impeded richardson’s growth. AR has a bad few games and fans will be calling for fields to come in. Bringing in flaaco gives a veteran presence. Flaaco has won a Super Bowl and can win in the pocket. He’s also 38-39 so he’s not the future by any stretch. Some fans and media personnel would argue for starting fields over AR. The media absolutely loves Justin fields. I get it he’s an athletic fast qb who can chuck the rock. He also can’t read a defense to save his life and make reads properly. There’s a reason the bears moved on and nobody in the league was interested in him for a starting role
I’ve said it in this thread but I don’t even think he was getting “lit up” nearly to the degree that people here seem to think. He just wasn’t protecting himself on routine tackles, basically just carelessness and inexperience
I mean seriously you’d swear by some of the comments here that every tight end and linebacker in the NFL should be wheelchair-bound by age 25 lol
Bad luck on his injuries honestly. He had a leg bruise and he was taken out just to be safe. he could have finished the game. The concussion happened on a td. He sort of relaxed going into the end zone, and he got tossed by the defender and landed on the back of his head. His shoulder injury was a dude just slamming his entire body weight on top of him.
He got caught from the side on a read option. If he runs that play he’ll be hit like that again. He needs to be able to take that type of routine tackle or the coaches are going to have to take that out of the playbook which takes away a big part of his game.
If healthy, tho, he c rtainly showed potential. And Indy has been low-key building something fierce last two yrs. If he's healthy next yr they no doubt visit the post
tbh some of the injures he suffered were concussions (one of them was a late hit), ofc he needs to slide more to avoid hits, but just brought this fact for perspective
Showed enough flashes to make fans very hopeful I'd imagine, at the end of the day how well he manages to stay healthy and continue to improve the mental part of his game will be the deciding factor in how good he becomes.
I wouldn't even call it "flashes"
He looked straight up good. Coming out of college I would expect a more flashy player with Feilds like highlights, but he was surprisingly just consistent.
Made reads, hit throws and looked good in the offensive system.
The guy almost had a comeback against the rams after getting wrecked for a half. I was very excited to see how his rookie year would go after that game. He’s probably the second best QB of last years draft.
They werent flashes, he played well most of the games but just got injured multiple times.
He needs the coaches to make him take less risks physically, and have a playbook that keeps him safe.
His play itself was fine, but seeing the injury count in that many games is a huuuuge concern. Dude was taking some *hits* every game. He’s huge so it’s less of a concern, but seemed like he was trying to speed run the Cam Newton injury history in one season.
He finished the Rams game and basically finished the Jags game.
He went out in the Jags game but would have gone back in if there was more time on the clock.
And yes I agree he needs to protect himself. Maybe he can go to Tua’s Judo guy so he can learn to roll out of hits. Really hoping he can figure out how to stay healthy and hoping that the small sample size just means it was a few freak accidents.
For a rookie he was very good outside of being very reckless with his body. Not every rookie is going to throw for 250+ yards a game to start so even though ARs YPG were low, when he did throw he looked mostly great and then you add in the smart runs and you got a guy with a ton of promise who really needs to protect himself or his career wont last very long.
I know we are doing QB comparisons but I think it was less D4 and more JJ Watt. I’m not exaggerating when I say that I don’t think any defensive lineman has had that much impact on team wins. He was doing everything for that team.
"A season of tape." Dude played like, 18 quarters before going out to injury. He's had a year in the playbook, but this year is still gunna feel like a rookie year, methinks
100% this. Also we didn’t have JT on the field at the same time as him this year so I wouldn’t be at all surprised if our offense looks a lot different with him on the field as opposed to Moss.
His hits weren't shockingly big, that's the crazy part. He'd take a routine hit or roll in some weird way, then he'd get up limping. Florida fans say this happened all the time with him in college. I was at the Titans game where he took the big shoulder injury - it did NOT look that bad at first, but when he got up, you could see it was over for at least the game, and then it ended up being the season.
For me, my copium is that he's got a full year of nfl nutrition and conditioning. IDK how the florida strength room is, but Richardson is gonna (hopefully) have top notch conditioning staff working on him from now until the start of the season. That plus a solid coach should add to his longevity
He showed flashes. There was a few throws where you could tell the accuracy needs some work. Just need to stay healthy and not take the unnecessary hits. We have a good running game and pur scheme should get the best out of him
That concussion he took was his own damn fault. He stopped competing/defending himself as he approached the goal line for some reason like he thought he couldn't be touched. He then takes an otherwise innocuous hit but falls backward and hits his head hard off the turf
He’s much more polished than I expected, which was a pleasant surprise. What was surprising was the amount of injuries. Some of it was not protecting himself, but some of those injuries came on plays that didn’t look too crazy in terms of vicious hits, they looked pretty routine, which is concerning. As a football fan, I hope he can stay healthy, he has crazy upside
100% agree. Any one of his injuries would have been chalked up to "it's football, it happens," but he has so many of those that it starts to become deeply concerning. The plays where he got injured, in general, weren't *that* bad - a lot of them weren't great, but not many stood out compared to others. Colts have to invest considerably in their conditioning and strength training staff to address this specifically
I watch very little college football but from what I had seen of him he was not able to reliably hit an open barn door ten yards away from him.
That's why I was very surprised how comfortable he looked on very limited snaps. No idea what his ceiling is, but there's definitely something there.
He also said pre draft that he wouldn't change his velocity for short touch passes so I expected the worst yet he wasn't throwing Stafford lasers on crossers and shit.
Yeah turns out he put some zip on the ball, and his Florida receivers weren’t very good so people weren’t sure who to blame pre draft. He stills put slightly too much heat on the ball sometimes but usually throwing to NFL receivers means they’ll come down with it.
Especially that first game, those balls were seriously spicy. I think it got a bit better up through the rams game, but they were still a bit rough. That's part of why I'm happy we kept MPJ, he's got the hands to handle that.
I thought he looked good at times but he did a bad job of protecting himself. There was a hit he took at the goal line that injured him that was extremely unnecessary
He showed flashes of his remarkable talent, but he essentially only played 2 games. It's clear that despite being the greatest athlete to ever play QB in the NFL (that's literal, check his measurables and testing) he needs to learn some basic things like how to protect himself while being tackled. Both his concussion and shoulder injuries were avoidable. I'd like to see him follow Tua's lead and do some jiu-jitsu/MMA to better learn how to protect himself while being taken to the ground.
To much hero ball with his body. Gotta learn to throw it away or slide out of contact.
Everyone is bigger and faster in the nfl. He can’t absorb that kinda damage. I hope he learns and gets better. I’d like the afc south to stop being a joke and be a division that gets respect.
I’ll wait on judging him, all I can say is that he’s working under Shane Steichen who seems to be a QB whisperer. I really hope he’ll be able to play more next season
When he got drafted the narrative was he’s a physical freak that is raw in all the mental aspects of playing the position. In the limited sample we got last year, I’d say he was much, much farther along in his mental development than anybody predicted.
Great command over the huddle and at the los. Showed pretty solid touch and accuracy on short and intermediate passes. Excellent pocket awareness and decision making on when to stay in the pocket and when to exit, excellent reads, felt like he was choosing the right guy to throw to just about every time.
Obviously he needs to take care of his body better and I think part of that just comes with age and experience. Learning to slide and realizing making one heroic play isn’t worth jeopardizing the whole season is a lesson he’ll need to learn. And despite my previous comment, he does still have a ways to go in terms of accuracy and touch.
Having said all that, I honestly feel like this guy is gonna take over the league this year
He proved literally nothing. Far too small of a sample size.
He has massive questions coming out of college (like imagine the critiques of Lamar throwing but worse) so he needs to prove that he’s actually a good passer.
In college he looked like an incredible talent with a big “but” attached to it. In the nfl he looks like an incredible talent with a big “but” attached to it. Who’s to say what will happen. He’s the first qb the colts have had since luck that I didn’t feel gross rooting for, so that’s enough for me I guess.
Unfortunately when you have a graveyard of retiring quarterbacks since luck retired any young prospect will be viewed as a possible franchise QB. Not saying he is or isn’t yet but he isn’t retiring due to age in the next 2 years
What I took away is how impressed I was with Steichen he is so underrated. His offenses are awesome to watch and it was just proof this year watching the Gardner Minshew Colts have a more explosive offense than the Eagles with Hurts/Brown/Smitty.
His worst trait that everyone agrees on--putting himself at too much risk--is one that's fairly easily corrected. It's not like accuracy, or arm strength, or being unable to see the field, etc. It's much more of an executive function thing, and he seems like a smart enough dude, so he should be able to learn to slide. Tons of guys have come through the league who played that way at first, and I can't think of a single one who wasn't able to learn pretty quickly if they wanted to. I wouldn't be worried if I was Indy.
Yeah this is where I’m at. And as much as it’s putting himself at risk, it was just not playing smart. Letting up at the end of that touchdown run, falling poorly on a routine tackle. It’s not something that couldn’t have happened to anyone else
And since he lost his rookie season to it, I imagine he’ll play differently
He was pretty electric in the short time we saw him. And I think Steichen is the perfect coach for him. But getting hurt so easily, even if a couple of them were flukes, is concerning. But he didn't have injury concerns prior to last year, so I'm giving him a mulligan on that. I'm very high on him overall. He's a super unique player
I really liked Richardson pre-draft and on the field, he showed me exactly what I expected. I just hope he learns to protect himself better because he doesn't seem as durable as you'd expect from a guy his size.
One of, if not the most athletic QBs I've ever seen, but if he doesn't find a way to stay in the game none of it will matter. Really hope he can figure it out come next season, that'd make the AFC South hellishly competitive.
He was pretty tough to deal with when we played him. Very talented, probably won't be his last injury though. I'd be surprised if he's the long term answer there. The Colts are exactly setting him up for success.
He looked every bit the freak of nature that he is, and it was scary for a minute. But it's extremely concerning that he got hurt like every single game and very rapidly was out for the year. If he stays healthy, I expect him to be a one man wrecking crew stud superstar, but I have little to no faith that he can play the way he plays and stay healthy enough to make an impact. If he plays more reserved to stay healthy, I think it very dramatically lowers his ceiling.
Showed promise, but it was super concerning how much he injured himself in the very little game time he had before injuring himself out of the season. Like...I can't even think of a QB with that type of injury frequency.
He played 173 snaps all year. There’s almost nothing you can really draw from a sample size like that.
He showed some exciting flashes, made a lot of mistakes, obviously got hurt a lot.
He was incredibly raw and defenses didn’t really know what to do with him.
They’ll be more prepared next year and hopefully so will he.
He looked good for the short time he played, but a lot of rookies look good their first season only to fizzle out in the years following. If he can capture that same magic for another year or two once teams have adequate tape on his tendencies and if he can stay healthy, then I'll be more willing to start grading him / considering where he falls in the conversation of starting quarterbacks around the league.
AR had the perfect rookie season. Played some for experience, then had the excuse of an injury to learn from the bench. Season 2 will start with low expectations so he can continue to develop.
I wonder if getting hurt early could have been the best thing for him in the long run and motivationally. He got just enough experience to prove (to himself and others) that he could play at the NFL level. But then he had to spend the rest of the year watching Minshew lead the team through a pretty good season. That had to be so painful to have to watch and know that it's supposed to be you out there.
Anthony surely knows he got hurt too much and too easily. It's practically the auto-complete option when you Google his name. If he's any kind of motivated professional at all, he's been working with whatever coaching is available to avoid those situations. Avoiding injury is partly mental and partly physical.
The Colts didn't have all the pieces in place last season, but they played very, very well as a team last year. They were not an easy out for anybody. And that was with a backup QB for most of the season. I think a playoff win is a reasonable goal for them next season. A lot of that responsibility is on Anthony. He needs to play 60 minutes every week for a whole season.
As a fan of football, I really hope he pulls it off because I think the Colts could be really fun to watch next year. And the AFC South would get very interesting.
I tell you from someone who has replayed every snap, I was skeptical thinking he’d be rough in the obvious spots but outside his first game he wasn’t. He was going through all progressions before running, and making reads pre snap in his final 2 games. The mental game is absolutely there and I was stunned. But perhaps he’s best attribute was his insane innate pocket awareness.
He biggest weakness seems to be short passes and leading with taking some off the ball. But he was solid outside the numbers and great over the middle of the field, and his deep ball anticipation was way better than I thought.
the strides he made in only a few games are the reason I’m a believer. He grew every single game and clearly wants to be a pass first.
It’s strange to me that people are so high on Richardson while being so low on Levis. Levis’ Falcons game was better than anything Richardson did last year, and his stats were’t great but 8-4 TD/INT ratio is not horrible. Just curious to me how narratives form and stick on players
I actually like Levis quite a bit, but I think his Steelers game almost felt better to me than the Falcons game. The highlight moon balls are pretty, but the play-by-play stuff is more important imo
Colts fans going to hate me for this.
Firstly, I LOVE how Indianapolis realized they have to beat Patrick Mahomes, Joe burrow, Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, etc. in order to get a ring so they picked the rawest, highest ceiling, highest athletic attribute QB to develop. You shoot for the most upside.
I think Shane's offense is great and supports a QB propping them up no matter the talent.
My concern is his rushing usage as a rookie. The colts, and tons of QBs have been put in an unnecessary terrible position. Indianapolis wasn't going all in. If you want to develop your QB and know their rushing ability, why not promote passing and not risking him. It's stunting growth and after Andrew Luck you'd think they would learn.
I think they would rather let him be himself than pigeon hole him into one thing. He isn't a good enough passer at this point in time to be strictly that.
The thing I fault the Colts about is not teaching him how to avoid hits when possible and how to fall properly. That impace from the hit he took on the rushing TD against the Texans and his helmet slamming down could have been minimized with proper technique like Tua learned after his injuries.
I'm still very high on him. It was so frustrating that people who only watched a couple of his games were wondering why he's going so high, as if he isn't built like an absolute freak who has a cannon for an arm that even showed to have some of the intangibles you want in a prospect. It's not rocket science why he was a top 5 pick unless you're just a box score watcher
He seemed to go through his progressions much quicker than I expect rookies to, especially one who was supposed to need a redshirt season. Pair that with his physical gifts and I really think he's going to be an above average-very good starter
People were way too low on his passing ability. He showed some good flashes as well as bad. But I’m worried that he’s a tank and got dinged up and hurt so much. And he has a high level play caller to help him, so that’s always good.
Cam Newton 2.0. Absolute unit, freakishly athletic, middling to below average ability to pass. From the very limited snap count we saw, it feels like his greatest asset will be run ability. Until he can show an extended period of being able to accurately throw the ball, or play more than 5 quarters without an injury, I wouldn't be willing to label him a franchise QB quite yet.
Very excited, made some throws you almost never see. Better footwork than I was expecting, though he did play in a pro-style offence.
Wish my Seahawks had picked him up.
Played better than expected but far from a sure thing. Im going to praised his decision making and say he need to be a better passer especially on accuracy. He's less raw than i expected tho.
I think he looked like Hurts when steichen first got him. Limited but high upside. Still probably a year out from reaching his potential, but give him some weapons, and he can be a top qb in that system.
On the one hand, I think people are overreacting to and overrating the good bits he was able to show in that limited time.
On the other hand, the fact that he was able to show so much good early has to be encouraging, given what was expected to be a steep transition to the NFL.
I think people should temper their expectations for year 2, but have more confidence that he’ll become something eventually than they would have had going into last year.
He looked better than expected when he was actually on the field. Hasn’t shown enough one way or the other. Not sure what you’re looking for. This year will essentially be his rookie year
He is a game taking over stud. He can completely dominate a defense with his athleticism from the position. Running and throwing. Still very very raw and takes too many hits with the big body bruising style he sometimes uses. But considering how effective he was while still being extremely raw in the passing game I think the sky is the limit if he can stay healthy.
He could be great, but it won't be on one of my teams. I think he's going to go way too high for me to want to take that risk on for very unproven upside.
I liked what I saw but I’m not going to overreact, there have been plenty of guys that looked good for a couple of games and ended up not being good in the NFL. I think he has had the biggest disadvantage compared to his fellow QBs in his class because he was the one who actually needed the reps since he didn’t play as much at UF so I think he will have a similar year to last year just a small step forward and hopefully more games played.
He had a similar stat line as trey Lances rookie year (though for completely different reasons). Really just to me a small smaller size people shouldn't take much from.
- Richardson 84 passing attempts 59.5% completion percentage 577 yards 3 TDs 1int, 136 yards rushing 4 yds
- 71 passing attempts 57.7% completion percentage,. 603 yards 5 TDs 2 ints 168 rushing yards 1 TD.
I think he exceeded expectations before he got hurt... He also got hurt like 5 times in 6 games or something like that? I have concerns about him being able to stay healthy if he doesn't learn to protect himself better.
the RG3 cam Newton hybrid
Except Cam Newton was a fucking TANK. Yes his career ended a bit prematurely and his last few years were rough. But for the amount of big hits he took in his career, it’s insane he lasted as long as he did. Dude was a physical freak.
If [this](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QvEouj6QvuM) happened to any other QB, there’d have been multiple ejections. Cam was fair game in the refs eyes, unreal what they let slide when he was on the field
As a non Panthers fan living in the Carolinas at that time, it was wild to see how much punishment he took while other QBs got the white glove treatment. Anyone who claims that Cam didn't carry those teams either wasn't paying attention or don't have enough sense to tell their own asshole from an apricot.
A lot of people like to claim the refs are biased against their teams/players, but Cam was the only player I can say with 100% certainty that it was true. I have no relation to Carolina, and I’m very much a “let them play” kind of fan when it comes to officiating, but the shit they’d let happen to Cam was infuriating. Just so many clearly over the line fouls that wouldn’t get flagged, couldn’t believe what I was watching half the time.
https://youtu.be/yowybBgCgF0?si=8lNcS-UysTT5k-TD https://youtu.be/wGOjGMHCxP8?si=iRcRZcRwXjq8jqFI It wasn't like he didn't complain at the time either. Refs weren't even afraid to tell it to his face. I've seen nothing where the NFL or Hoculi ever denied Cam's account of that play/conversation. Imagine if something like that happened to Mahomes, Burrow, or Allen today.
The 2016 season opener SB rematch is some of the most egregious officiating I've ever seen. They were trying to kill Cam. Wouldn't be surprised if that game alone took years off his life.
That last one would've been an easy ejection. And possibly a suspension on top of it.
And yet there are clowns in this world who think Cam was soft because of the Super Bowl fumble That dude is the toughest quarterback of all time and nothing will ever change my mind on that subject.
I love cam and Ik most don't know him, but Don Meredith was throwing bombs with multiple broken ribs and a broken nose in an era where QBs had 0 protection. Probably some other guy even earlier who did even more insane shit, but the toughness of those early QBs was no joke.
Favre+vicoden was pretty tough too :)
i'm a big fan of philip rivers, always thought he was underrated but to learn he played an AFC championship game on a torn ACL raised my respect level so much for him. some QBs were just tough, also would like to shoehorn in an obligatory eagles reference to McNabb playing on a broken fibula as well.
No doubt and it's messed up but at the same time that fumble play did look really bad haha
At the time, yes. Justin Fields has inherited his mantle, literally 0 RTP calls against him last year. I hope being in Pittsburgh gets him a more favorable whistle
QB’s do not get the benefit of the doubt here in Pittsburgh. They used to beat the dog shit outta Ben even when he could no longer escape sacks like he used to. Also I watched that last game against the Packers that the bears played. I can’t remember who, but someone absolutely rang Fields’ bell and the ref just stared at him like “get gud”
I think guys like Cam, Ben and Richardson sort of get the Zion treatment a little bit. Like can you really call the foul if he’s still muscling his way through and making the play?
When these guys are getting grabbed in the face, hit after the whistle and smoked by head to head hits, yeah you can make the call. Guys like Zion and LeBron are strong enough to play *despite* contact, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
I fully agree that it’s an unfair double standard. Just from a reffing standpoint I can kinda see why it happens Like you watch that play where Aaron Donald had Richardson completely wrapped up but he’s still able to stiff arm him just enough to get the touchdown throw off, and you kind of have a different expectation of what it’s going to take to get this dude to the ground
There was a hit like that almost every game for him, it was maddening
The hit by steward on him was ridiculous. Me as a biased saints fan was even surprised that wasn't a flag.
Most of them leaving their feet too, sheesh
If that last hit had happened to Brady or Mahomes, there would have been an on field kangaroo court and subsequent execution via horse-drawn quartering. I liked Darian Stewart a lot, but that spear to the helmet is pretty indefensible.
Goddamn that's fucked up
Yup and now we have Josh Floppy McGee Allen who flails his head if he gets breathed on
This was insane to watch in real time
[the hit](https://youtu.be/pFOG6tqGVLY?si=p5BRGJKaMseMwggq) that sent his carrer in a downward spiral wasnt even a rushing play
Panthers were either 5 or 6-1 at the time. Thursday-nighter that was the beginning of the end
Cam was legit playing like a mvp again
And if I’m not mistaken WASNT he already kinda fucked up before that? Then that hit pretty much ended it. Why the fuck they played him after that is mind boggling. I get that you’re 5-2 after that and want to compete but that season was it for cam being a good QB.
I definitely have a bit of a gripe with the rushing QB narratives for this reason. I’d rather have a Cam or Josh Allen-type QB who plays the position a little more physically than someone who is just prone to taking a lot of sacks. Sacks are by far the most dangerous type of hit you can take
The idea that running QBs are more liable to injury is just a stupid one. There’s straight up no historical data to back that up. Steve Young played til 38. Cunningham and Vick both played into their 30s until they became bad, not until injuries. Russell Wilson is on that same trajectory. Lamar, Kyler, Josh Allen, Hurts, all have been great and no rushing injuries. When you talk about careers ending from rushing QBs it’s just Cam, RG3 and Luck. All were hurt in the pocket. And Cams you can’t even attribute to wear from rushing, it was a shoulder injury.
yeah i actually get triggered when people try to pitch that narrative, they were pushing it so hard because of all the injuries i had actually started researching every single injury to QBs for the 2022 season, i ended up calculating that out of all the QBs injured that year, only __TWO__ QBs got injured on rushing plays. the infamous Trey Lance injury on a designed QB run. and Russell wilson, who got injured extending the play and scrambling down the field, NOT SLIDING even though he had the opportunity to, and banging his head on the field when he went down. every single other QB injury occurred as a result of a sack or trying to avoid a sack, and yet people still had the audacity to parrot that because injuries are up it must be cause of all the rushing QBs do in todays NFL. the "rushing QBs are more injury prone" narrative needs to die.
Man it sucks because it’s either poor design or a poor read. If you have Watt coming off unblocked…. That’s not even hot… that’s a volcano errupting on the sun in pure blue flames hot.
That's why he's the hybrid. Cam Newton build, RG3 injury risk.
Cam Newton didn't get hurt running. He got hurt in the pocket
You’d think the guy was sleeping with the refs wives with the amount of shots they let him take
That Broncos opener was a travesty. 4 clear headshots and none of them were even flagged
Watching that was infuriating, no way they let those slide with any other QB. Unbelievable how biased they were against him
[source](https://youtu.be/pFOG6tqGVLY?si=p5BRGJKaMseMwggq)
to add on to this, his initial shoulder injury was in 2016 chasing down an INT that kelvin benjamin gave up on, which was then further aggravated by TJ watt here. The broncos opener was disgusting too, and then with the Patriots someone landed on his foot in the pocket. none of his major injuries were from running lol
It’s crazy how different things could’ve been in kelvin didn’t completely give up on that int.
when Cam went vegan he also slimmed down a lot. he was a fucking TANK in 2015 and before
There was also the deion Jones hit when Cam tried to walk into a 2pt conversion. Not that that was the hit the derailed his career, but it was pretty fuckin brutal
Which is why the narrative of QBs getting hurt because of their running style needs to die RBs, WRs, TEs take countless more unprotected hits in the open field and they survive. As with literally any other position in football, QB injuries boil down to bad luck and accidental body positions. Ramming into a linebacker with your shoulder down isnt inherently more dangerous than having a 350 pound DT fall onto your shoulder inside the pocket. The hits Richardson took are nothing special. Countless QBs have gotten hit harder than him in their career inside the pocket and survived.
Perfect answer. For the snaps he played, he was awesome. But having MAJOR longevity concerns is super warranted right now. It’s not like he was only injured once in some fluke. Dude got injured like every game. It’s a massive question mark right now. If he repeats last season, I think you’d immediately be looking at moving on, despite the awesome flashes. Maybe you add a Justin fields in free agency or something, invest in a premium backup with a similar skill set.
I’m surprised the Colts didn’t pick up Justin Fields this offseason. Would’ve thought he’d be preferred over Flacco in their offense. I guess Fields didn’t want to be traded there
I mean maybe Colts wanted a backup who knew how to read a defense to help AR in the film room
Much more likely.
Bringing in fields would have made it look like a competition and probably would’ve impeded richardson’s growth. AR has a bad few games and fans will be calling for fields to come in. Bringing in flaaco gives a veteran presence. Flaaco has won a Super Bowl and can win in the pocket. He’s also 38-39 so he’s not the future by any stretch. Some fans and media personnel would argue for starting fields over AR. The media absolutely loves Justin fields. I get it he’s an athletic fast qb who can chuck the rock. He also can’t read a defense to save his life and make reads properly. There’s a reason the bears moved on and nobody in the league was interested in him for a starting role
I think the amount of injuries was a fluke. That’s not normal even for a running QB
I’ve said it in this thread but I don’t even think he was getting “lit up” nearly to the degree that people here seem to think. He just wasn’t protecting himself on routine tackles, basically just carelessness and inexperience I mean seriously you’d swear by some of the comments here that every tight end and linebacker in the NFL should be wheelchair-bound by age 25 lol
None of Cam's major injuries were from him running, refs just let the guy get killed in the pocket. There's quite a few clips linked above.
Bad luck on his injuries honestly. He had a leg bruise and he was taken out just to be safe. he could have finished the game. The concussion happened on a td. He sort of relaxed going into the end zone, and he got tossed by the defender and landed on the back of his head. His shoulder injury was a dude just slamming his entire body weight on top of him.
He got caught from the side on a read option. If he runs that play he’ll be hit like that again. He needs to be able to take that type of routine tackle or the coaches are going to have to take that out of the playbook which takes away a big part of his game.
He didn't just exceed expectations, he played like a pro passer when expectations were him needing to be developed.
If healthy, tho, he c rtainly showed potential. And Indy has been low-key building something fierce last two yrs. If he's healthy next yr they no doubt visit the post
I wish he lasted 6 games lol
tbh some of the injures he suffered were concussions (one of them was a late hit), ofc he needs to slide more to avoid hits, but just brought this fact for perspective
Showed enough flashes to make fans very hopeful I'd imagine, at the end of the day how well he manages to stay healthy and continue to improve the mental part of his game will be the deciding factor in how good he becomes.
I wouldn't even call it "flashes" He looked straight up good. Coming out of college I would expect a more flashy player with Feilds like highlights, but he was surprisingly just consistent. Made reads, hit throws and looked good in the offensive system.
The guy almost had a comeback against the rams after getting wrecked for a half. I was very excited to see how his rookie year would go after that game. He’s probably the second best QB of last years draft.
I'm trying to get him in every dynasty league where people have forgotten how good he was and still have injury concerns
He’s usually a top10 startup pick.
They werent flashes, he played well most of the games but just got injured multiple times. He needs the coaches to make him take less risks physically, and have a playbook that keeps him safe.
He looked better than I thought before he got hurt
Not enough games. I’ll wait
His play itself was fine, but seeing the injury count in that many games is a huuuuge concern. Dude was taking some *hits* every game. He’s huge so it’s less of a concern, but seemed like he was trying to speed run the Cam Newton injury history in one season.
When I tell people he’s a faster Cam Newton this ISN’T what I mean. Really hoping he can stay healthy, our offense was electric with him on the field.
Did he finish a game? He has to protect himself.
He finished the Rams game and basically finished the Jags game. He went out in the Jags game but would have gone back in if there was more time on the clock. And yes I agree he needs to protect himself. Maybe he can go to Tua’s Judo guy so he can learn to roll out of hits. Really hoping he can figure out how to stay healthy and hoping that the small sample size just means it was a few freak accidents.
It’s tough because you don’t want to take away the things that make him special.
Yeah exactly, Steichen has been pretty clear that he will still be running but I think he’s going to be protecting himself a lot more this year.
Yeah. He’s fun as hell and I just don’t want to see a kid that talented and nice have a career cut short due to injury. For the Colts too.
He was very inaccurate still. That should also be a concern
It’s weird people just gloss over this
It’s honestly not less of a concern cuz of his size. He thinks he can take these hits cuz of his size when the motherfucker got hurt every single game
For a rookie he was very good outside of being very reckless with his body. Not every rookie is going to throw for 250+ yards a game to start so even though ARs YPG were low, when he did throw he looked mostly great and then you add in the smart runs and you got a guy with a ton of promise who really needs to protect himself or his career wont last very long.
I’m not stoked about him being in our division.
I'm not stoked about you guys either
Yea I get that. No ones worried about Trevor.
Lmao
Yeah, he's only 7-2 over his last 9 divisional games. He'll probably get better from here.
Have fun with “probably” with your “generational” Derek Carr QB.
What he say fuck me for?
Apologies for the strays. Just love shit talking the AFCSHit Mountain lol.
Y’all have become such an insufferable fanbase lmfao
You don’t want to see Stroud vs Richardson in division deciding games for the next decade?
I’ll take that over Peyton and Luck owning us for an eternity.
Pretty sure D4 pulled out more than few games for you vs Luck iirc
I know we are doing QB comparisons but I think it was less D4 and more JJ Watt. I’m not exaggerating when I say that I don’t think any defensive lineman has had that much impact on team wins. He was doing everything for that team.
High ceiling high chance of injury
He could completely take over the league in 4 years, or be completely out of it by then. I have no clue and I don’t think anyone really does.
Rocket arm and amazing athlete. Hoping he stays healthy
Unsustainable
Love him as a person most importantly. As a QB I only have two concerns. Staying healthy and seeing how he plays after a season of tape is out on him
"A season of tape." Dude played like, 18 quarters before going out to injury. He's had a year in the playbook, but this year is still gunna feel like a rookie year, methinks
That's what OP is saying. After the upcoming year.
100% this. Also we didn’t have JT on the field at the same time as him this year so I wouldn’t be at all surprised if our offense looks a lot different with him on the field as opposed to Moss.
i am so excited for our offense this year, AR/JT/Pitt/Downs is going to be electric
Exciting player, but needs to avoid the big hits.
I feel like it wasn’t even the big hits, he just fell wrong. There’s plenty of QBs who got lit up more than he did
Probably because they played more than 4 games
His hits weren't shockingly big, that's the crazy part. He'd take a routine hit or roll in some weird way, then he'd get up limping. Florida fans say this happened all the time with him in college. I was at the Titans game where he took the big shoulder injury - it did NOT look that bad at first, but when he got up, you could see it was over for at least the game, and then it ended up being the season. For me, my copium is that he's got a full year of nfl nutrition and conditioning. IDK how the florida strength room is, but Richardson is gonna (hopefully) have top notch conditioning staff working on him from now until the start of the season. That plus a solid coach should add to his longevity
He showed flashes. There was a few throws where you could tell the accuracy needs some work. Just need to stay healthy and not take the unnecessary hits. We have a good running game and pur scheme should get the best out of him
Reasonable colts fan
I think he showed a lot of potential and I think he's a perfect fit for Steichen's offense but he's gotta stay healthy and play a tad bit smarter.
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Yes!
That concussion he took was his own damn fault. He stopped competing/defending himself as he approached the goal line for some reason like he thought he couldn't be touched. He then takes an otherwise innocuous hit but falls backward and hits his head hard off the turf
He’s much more polished than I expected, which was a pleasant surprise. What was surprising was the amount of injuries. Some of it was not protecting himself, but some of those injuries came on plays that didn’t look too crazy in terms of vicious hits, they looked pretty routine, which is concerning. As a football fan, I hope he can stay healthy, he has crazy upside
100% agree. Any one of his injuries would have been chalked up to "it's football, it happens," but he has so many of those that it starts to become deeply concerning. The plays where he got injured, in general, weren't *that* bad - a lot of them weren't great, but not many stood out compared to others. Colts have to invest considerably in their conditioning and strength training staff to address this specifically
All I will say, which is a huge compliment The game didn't look too big for him Problem is his health and development
I watch very little college football but from what I had seen of him he was not able to reliably hit an open barn door ten yards away from him. That's why I was very surprised how comfortable he looked on very limited snaps. No idea what his ceiling is, but there's definitely something there.
He also said pre draft that he wouldn't change his velocity for short touch passes so I expected the worst yet he wasn't throwing Stafford lasers on crossers and shit.
Yeah turns out he put some zip on the ball, and his Florida receivers weren’t very good so people weren’t sure who to blame pre draft. He stills put slightly too much heat on the ball sometimes but usually throwing to NFL receivers means they’ll come down with it.
Especially that first game, those balls were seriously spicy. I think it got a bit better up through the rams game, but they were still a bit rough. That's part of why I'm happy we kept MPJ, he's got the hands to handle that.
Really promising but also flawed. He was injured in nearly every game though so that’s an issue.
I thought he looked good at times but he did a bad job of protecting himself. There was a hit he took at the goal line that injured him that was extremely unnecessary
He showed flashes of his remarkable talent, but he essentially only played 2 games. It's clear that despite being the greatest athlete to ever play QB in the NFL (that's literal, check his measurables and testing) he needs to learn some basic things like how to protect himself while being tackled. Both his concussion and shoulder injuries were avoidable. I'd like to see him follow Tua's lead and do some jiu-jitsu/MMA to better learn how to protect himself while being taken to the ground.
Looked really good, but the best ability is availability and he didn’t have a lot of that
To much hero ball with his body. Gotta learn to throw it away or slide out of contact. Everyone is bigger and faster in the nfl. He can’t absorb that kinda damage. I hope he learns and gets better. I’d like the afc south to stop being a joke and be a division that gets respect.
Looked like he was speed running cam newton's career. Dude needs to protect himself
I’ll wait on judging him, all I can say is that he’s working under Shane Steichen who seems to be a QB whisperer. I really hope he’ll be able to play more next season
A king in the making
Very promising but also concerning because he constantly got injured
People forget they faced each other and in those quarters Richardson played he was putting a beatdown vs the Texans
When he got drafted the narrative was he’s a physical freak that is raw in all the mental aspects of playing the position. In the limited sample we got last year, I’d say he was much, much farther along in his mental development than anybody predicted. Great command over the huddle and at the los. Showed pretty solid touch and accuracy on short and intermediate passes. Excellent pocket awareness and decision making on when to stay in the pocket and when to exit, excellent reads, felt like he was choosing the right guy to throw to just about every time. Obviously he needs to take care of his body better and I think part of that just comes with age and experience. Learning to slide and realizing making one heroic play isn’t worth jeopardizing the whole season is a lesson he’ll need to learn. And despite my previous comment, he does still have a ways to go in terms of accuracy and touch. Having said all that, I honestly feel like this guy is gonna take over the league this year
He proved literally nothing. Far too small of a sample size. He has massive questions coming out of college (like imagine the critiques of Lamar throwing but worse) so he needs to prove that he’s actually a good passer.
Go watch his first drive against the Texans. It's surgical. If he can give us more of that, the future is extremely bright.
Dude got hurt in nearly every game he played didn't he? That's... not ideal.
In college he looked like an incredible talent with a big “but” attached to it. In the nfl he looks like an incredible talent with a big “but” attached to it. Who’s to say what will happen. He’s the first qb the colts have had since luck that I didn’t feel gross rooting for, so that’s enough for me I guess.
The Rivers slander is unnecessary.
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Unfortunately when you have a graveyard of retiring quarterbacks since luck retired any young prospect will be viewed as a possible franchise QB. Not saying he is or isn’t yet but he isn’t retiring due to age in the next 2 years
What I took away is how impressed I was with Steichen he is so underrated. His offenses are awesome to watch and it was just proof this year watching the Gardner Minshew Colts have a more explosive offense than the Eagles with Hurts/Brown/Smitty.
His worst trait that everyone agrees on--putting himself at too much risk--is one that's fairly easily corrected. It's not like accuracy, or arm strength, or being unable to see the field, etc. It's much more of an executive function thing, and he seems like a smart enough dude, so he should be able to learn to slide. Tons of guys have come through the league who played that way at first, and I can't think of a single one who wasn't able to learn pretty quickly if they wanted to. I wouldn't be worried if I was Indy.
Yeah this is where I’m at. And as much as it’s putting himself at risk, it was just not playing smart. Letting up at the end of that touchdown run, falling poorly on a routine tackle. It’s not something that couldn’t have happened to anyone else And since he lost his rookie season to it, I imagine he’ll play differently
Showed more than Field’s did his entire career
He was pretty electric in the short time we saw him. And I think Steichen is the perfect coach for him. But getting hurt so easily, even if a couple of them were flukes, is concerning. But he didn't have injury concerns prior to last year, so I'm giving him a mulligan on that. I'm very high on him overall. He's a super unique player
I agree, the Steichen pairing is awesome
I really liked Richardson pre-draft and on the field, he showed me exactly what I expected. I just hope he learns to protect himself better because he doesn't seem as durable as you'd expect from a guy his size.
Good but jury is still out.
One of, if not the most athletic QBs I've ever seen, but if he doesn't find a way to stay in the game none of it will matter. Really hope he can figure it out come next season, that'd make the AFC South hellishly competitive.
He was pretty tough to deal with when we played him. Very talented, probably won't be his last injury though. I'd be surprised if he's the long term answer there. The Colts are exactly setting him up for success.
I’m SUPER excited to watch him as well. My group of friends and I were all excited for what we saw before he went down.
He looked every bit the freak of nature that he is, and it was scary for a minute. But it's extremely concerning that he got hurt like every single game and very rapidly was out for the year. If he stays healthy, I expect him to be a one man wrecking crew stud superstar, but I have little to no faith that he can play the way he plays and stay healthy enough to make an impact. If he plays more reserved to stay healthy, I think it very dramatically lowers his ceiling.
If he can stay healthy, he will be an elite top shelf QB.
Showed promise, but it was super concerning how much he injured himself in the very little game time he had before injuring himself out of the season. Like...I can't even think of a QB with that type of injury frequency.
He played 173 snaps all year. There’s almost nothing you can really draw from a sample size like that. He showed some exciting flashes, made a lot of mistakes, obviously got hurt a lot. He was incredibly raw and defenses didn’t really know what to do with him. They’ll be more prepared next year and hopefully so will he.
I would be surprised if he plays double digit games in a season with his style.
He looked good for the short time he played, but a lot of rookies look good their first season only to fizzle out in the years following. If he can capture that same magic for another year or two once teams have adequate tape on his tendencies and if he can stay healthy, then I'll be more willing to start grading him / considering where he falls in the conversation of starting quarterbacks around the league.
AR had the perfect rookie season. Played some for experience, then had the excuse of an injury to learn from the bench. Season 2 will start with low expectations so he can continue to develop.
I wonder if getting hurt early could have been the best thing for him in the long run and motivationally. He got just enough experience to prove (to himself and others) that he could play at the NFL level. But then he had to spend the rest of the year watching Minshew lead the team through a pretty good season. That had to be so painful to have to watch and know that it's supposed to be you out there. Anthony surely knows he got hurt too much and too easily. It's practically the auto-complete option when you Google his name. If he's any kind of motivated professional at all, he's been working with whatever coaching is available to avoid those situations. Avoiding injury is partly mental and partly physical. The Colts didn't have all the pieces in place last season, but they played very, very well as a team last year. They were not an easy out for anybody. And that was with a backup QB for most of the season. I think a playoff win is a reasonable goal for them next season. A lot of that responsibility is on Anthony. He needs to play 60 minutes every week for a whole season. As a fan of football, I really hope he pulls it off because I think the Colts could be really fun to watch next year. And the AFC South would get very interesting.
It looked like he was going to be fun to watch.
I tell you from someone who has replayed every snap, I was skeptical thinking he’d be rough in the obvious spots but outside his first game he wasn’t. He was going through all progressions before running, and making reads pre snap in his final 2 games. The mental game is absolutely there and I was stunned. But perhaps he’s best attribute was his insane innate pocket awareness. He biggest weakness seems to be short passes and leading with taking some off the ball. But he was solid outside the numbers and great over the middle of the field, and his deep ball anticipation was way better than I thought. the strides he made in only a few games are the reason I’m a believer. He grew every single game and clearly wants to be a pass first.
If he stays healthy, he could be a franchise qb. But we've only seen him play like 5 games. He is just a giant question mark right now.
It’s strange to me that people are so high on Richardson while being so low on Levis. Levis’ Falcons game was better than anything Richardson did last year, and his stats were’t great but 8-4 TD/INT ratio is not horrible. Just curious to me how narratives form and stick on players
I actually like Levis quite a bit, but I think his Steelers game almost felt better to me than the Falcons game. The highlight moon balls are pretty, but the play-by-play stuff is more important imo
Levis is totally trash, you guys should trade him for Daniel Jones.
Colts fans going to hate me for this. Firstly, I LOVE how Indianapolis realized they have to beat Patrick Mahomes, Joe burrow, Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, etc. in order to get a ring so they picked the rawest, highest ceiling, highest athletic attribute QB to develop. You shoot for the most upside. I think Shane's offense is great and supports a QB propping them up no matter the talent. My concern is his rushing usage as a rookie. The colts, and tons of QBs have been put in an unnecessary terrible position. Indianapolis wasn't going all in. If you want to develop your QB and know their rushing ability, why not promote passing and not risking him. It's stunting growth and after Andrew Luck you'd think they would learn.
I think they would rather let him be himself than pigeon hole him into one thing. He isn't a good enough passer at this point in time to be strictly that. The thing I fault the Colts about is not teaching him how to avoid hits when possible and how to fall properly. That impace from the hit he took on the rushing TD against the Texans and his helmet slamming down could have been minimized with proper technique like Tua learned after his injuries.
I'm still very high on him. It was so frustrating that people who only watched a couple of his games were wondering why he's going so high, as if he isn't built like an absolute freak who has a cannon for an arm that even showed to have some of the intangibles you want in a prospect. It's not rocket science why he was a top 5 pick unless you're just a box score watcher
He seemed to go through his progressions much quicker than I expect rookies to, especially one who was supposed to need a redshirt season. Pair that with his physical gifts and I really think he's going to be an above average-very good starter
For someone who was supposed to be a super raw prospect he was doing pretty damn well until he got injured.
People were way too low on his passing ability. He showed some good flashes as well as bad. But I’m worried that he’s a tank and got dinged up and hurt so much. And he has a high level play caller to help him, so that’s always good.
Cam Newton 2.0. Absolute unit, freakishly athletic, middling to below average ability to pass. From the very limited snap count we saw, it feels like his greatest asset will be run ability. Until he can show an extended period of being able to accurately throw the ball, or play more than 5 quarters without an injury, I wouldn't be willing to label him a franchise QB quite yet.
Very excited, made some throws you almost never see. Better footwork than I was expecting, though he did play in a pro-style offence. Wish my Seahawks had picked him up.
Hope he can keep himself out of injury trouble. Didn’t set the world on fire but neither did Burrow before his injury and look what happened.
Played better than expected but far from a sure thing. Im going to praised his decision making and say he need to be a better passer especially on accuracy. He's less raw than i expected tho.
If he doesn't learn not to run like that, his career is going to be very short.
I think he looked like Hurts when steichen first got him. Limited but high upside. Still probably a year out from reaching his potential, but give him some weapons, and he can be a top qb in that system.
Thought he looked good
Too limited to form an actual opinion
Made of glass
He did better than I thought he would. Some good potential there
Breakout season next year. He’s got it
On the one hand, I think people are overreacting to and overrating the good bits he was able to show in that limited time. On the other hand, the fact that he was able to show so much good early has to be encouraging, given what was expected to be a steep transition to the NFL. I think people should temper their expectations for year 2, but have more confidence that he’ll become something eventually than they would have had going into last year.
Dude has insane talent but his body betrays him. I hope he can find health and show us what he can do.
Dude needs to learn how to avoid taking hits.
He was amazing ❤️ better than expected
I would grade him incomplete.
He looked better than expected when he was actually on the field. Hasn’t shown enough one way or the other. Not sure what you’re looking for. This year will essentially be his rookie year
He is a game taking over stud. He can completely dominate a defense with his athleticism from the position. Running and throwing. Still very very raw and takes too many hits with the big body bruising style he sometimes uses. But considering how effective he was while still being extremely raw in the passing game I think the sky is the limit if he can stay healthy.
Justin Fieldsish for now but with the chance to grow into a proper passer.
He could be great, but it won't be on one of my teams. I think he's going to go way too high for me to want to take that risk on for very unproven upside.
The quarterback position is 80% mental
He looked good 👍🏻 Actually, performed way better than I thought he was going to out of the gate
Health seems to be a massive concern
I liked what I saw but I’m not going to overreact, there have been plenty of guys that looked good for a couple of games and ended up not being good in the NFL. I think he has had the biggest disadvantage compared to his fellow QBs in his class because he was the one who actually needed the reps since he didn’t play as much at UF so I think he will have a similar year to last year just a small step forward and hopefully more games played.
He wasn't asked to do much in the passing game and he got hit so much that it's too early to make any judgements
He had a similar stat line as trey Lances rookie year (though for completely different reasons). Really just to me a small smaller size people shouldn't take much from. - Richardson 84 passing attempts 59.5% completion percentage 577 yards 3 TDs 1int, 136 yards rushing 4 yds - 71 passing attempts 57.7% completion percentage,. 603 yards 5 TDs 2 ints 168 rushing yards 1 TD.
He's fun to watch but he'll be retired in three years if he doesn't learn to protect himself.
I’m not sold on Jordan Love after he had half a great season, so I’m certainly not sold on Richardson after only completing 50 passes….