Why Colts Should Consider a Change at QB: The Carousel's Last Ride

As is tradition in the Ballard era, the Indianapolis Colts have not been good enough at quarterback so far this season.

After six weeks, it's undeniable that starting quarterback Daniel Jones has regressed into a shell of himself instead of picking up where he left off last season.

Former longtime general manager Chris Ballard put all of his eggs into Jones's basket, hoping that the former New York Giants quarterback would replicate the recent trend of former top draft picks finding success with a much-needed change of scenery.

The experiment started strong, as Ballard and head coach Shane Steichen combined to create an offense that perfectly complements Jones as a quarterback. The 2025 Colts offense got off to an unexpected start, playing like one of the most efficient offenses in league history.

However, after Jones broke his fibula in mid-November, things started to go off the rails. He wasn't nearly as mobile or decisive, but Jones was still playing honorably given the circumstances.

It was during a Week 14 AFC South matchup against the Jacksonville Jaguars when Jones tore his Achilles, and the one-year experiment looked to have run its course.

Instead of rolling with either Anthony Richardson or Riley Leonard for what was expected to be Ballard and Co.'s final chance, the Colts re-signed Daniel Jones to a two-year, $88 million deal, which essentially meant that the fate of the regime was in Jones's hands.

All it took was six games to prove that this roster was not going to get the job done, and Ballard has been shown the door as a result.

Ballard's early-season exit is a clear response from Colts Owner/CEO Carlie Irsay-Gordon that proves she wasn't kidding when she said the sense of urgency has never been higher for Ballard and head coach Shane Steichen in the 2026 offseason.

Irsay-Gordon gave the regime one last shot, especially since Ballard was entering the final year of his contract, but enough is enough.

Steichen will be the head coach for the rest of the season, barring a never-before-seen collapse, but it remains to be seen if he'll see his contract through, which runs through the 2028 season.

Parting ways with Ballard allows the Colts to get ahead of their general manager search, while also giving them a golden opportunity to shop their most valuable assets to maximize the next regime's first-year outlook.

One of the only downsides to making such a drastic move this early in the season is that it suggests the organization has given up on the current season.

Even though the Indianapolis Colts have all but punted on the 2026 regular season, their players still have to compete. The Colts must consider any move, and that includes the quarterback position.

I'm not suggesting a move be made right now, but the idea should at least be on the table if things continue to go south, regardless of how expensive a pill it may be to swallow.

The Colts' offensive woes through six weeks aren't all on Daniel Jones, but he hasn't been part of a potential solution either.

Daniel Jones Has Not Been Good Enough

Lou Anarumo's defense has been hot-and-cold, and so has Shane Steichen's offense, but it's the latter's shortcomings that have been most concerning - and that's saying something considering the Colts gave up the second-most yards (1,029) through the first two weeks in NFL history, and currently sport the league's worst pass rush unit.

The Colts' offense has not only taken a step back from last year's early-season success, but they've fully reverted to being just another offense that Chris Ballard built.

In terms of personnel, the offense remains largely the same as a season ago. Lingering and/or aggravated injuries and a collective regression have crushed their outlook, but at the end of the day, the offense has not been good enough.

Daniel Jones deserves some nuance, as Indy's aforementioned lack of firepower on offense, particularly at wide receiver, has shrunk the field and forced his hand at times, but that still doesn't excuse his poor performance.

The Colts' starting quarterback has largely returned from his infamous Achilles tear, but it's evident that he's not the same player he was a season ago.

Jones has been pressured at the T-7th-highest rate (42.1%) among all starting quarterbacks, and it's brought out the worst in him. The offensive line, specifically at tackle, is doing him no favors, and his confidence is shot as a result.

Jones ranks near the bottom of the league in numerous statistical categories and is one of three starting quarterbacks who have thrown more interceptions (6) than touchdowns (4) after six weeks of play.

Among qualified quarterbacks, here's where Jones ranks league-wide in those aforementioned key statistical categories entering Week 7:

30th in passer rating (71.1)
T-30th in QBR (38.2)
29th in completion percentage (59.6%)
29th in yards per pass attempt (5.9 YPA)

Jones is being paid to be an average quarterback, as his $44 million per year average salary ranks 15th at the position, but he's been much worse than the middle of the pack.

The passing attack has become so unsustainable that it's lowered the rushing game's ceiling, despite Jonathan Taylor's best efforts (6th in rushing yards, 2nd in rushing touchdowns).

Daniel Jones was never expected to single-handedly save the day. He's always been a quarterback who can only thrive if the situation around him is borderline perfect, and the group around him has proven that it's not ideal.

While Jones's future in Indianapolis is up in the air, what about his status for the rest of the 2026 regular season?

Colts head coach Shane Steichen said on Monday that Daniel Jones will remain the team's starting quarterback for the foreseeable future, but at what point do they entertain the idea of turning back to the player they'd seemingly given up on? And should they, at least in some capacity?

Steichen has showcased extreme loyalty to Jones over their year and a half together. Jones earned his head coach's trust with the offense by embodying what it means to be a starting quarterback in the NFL, both on and off the field.

The two managed to put together an efficient operation that was fascinating to watch at its peak.

But that honeymoon phase is over, and the Colts' offense doesn't appear to be headed anywhere anytime soon.

Entertaining Richardson's Return To The Gridiron

The Indianapolis Colts decided the Anthony Richardson experiment had run its course after Daniel Jones won the starting job entering the 2025 regular season, leading to the fourth-year quarterback requesting a trade in the following offseason, but there's now a reality where Richardson could start in the final year of his rookie contract.

If nothing else, we should at least see the Colts use Richardson's otherworldly athleticism to open up the playbook a bit. Jones has noticeably lost some of his mobility after tearing his Achilles, so the offense could use some fresh legs from time to time.

Shane Steichen is known for his creative playcalling, and I'm sure he's got plenty of tricks up his sleeve for the QB run game. Richardson could be eased into the offense as a rushing threat, whether that be in the red zone or in a short-yardage QB-designed run package.

Maybe it becomes a regular part of the offensive philosophy moving forward, or perhaps it just comes out in gotta-have-it situations where you want to put a hat on a hat and trust that your guys are tougher than theirs.

The Colts' offense is truly broken through six weeks of play, and with a blitz-heavy Brian Flores defense being the next test, and an impressive 4-2 Jacksonville Jaguars squad on the horizon, it's fair to predict that they'll continue their downward trajectory.

One thing's obvious: if Daniel Jones continues to struggle, you have to consider the change to Richardson full-time.

Revisiting The Anthony Richardson Experience

In 2024, in his second season as the Colts' starting quarterback, Anthony Richardson was benched. But instead of being strictly performance-based, Richardson's mid-season demotion was more due to his preparation in general.

The Colts felt that Richardson's preparation did not meet the standard that an NFL starting quarterback should meet, and decided enough was enough.

Through eight weeks and six starts, Richardson sported league-lows in numerous key statistical categories, namely completion percentage.

At the time of his benching, Richardson had league-low completion percentages on passes when not pressured (48.1%), under pressure (38.9%), not blitzed (50.5%), blitzed (26.5%), and to open targets (62.1%). His 48.1% completion mark on passes when not pressured is nearly 20 percentage points lower than the next qualifying passer, according to Next Gen Stats, via CBS Sports' Johnathan Jones

Richardson was spiraling, and the Colts felt that he wasn't putting in the necessary work off the field to become the best version of himself, so they turned to veteran quarterback Joe Flacco going into Week 9.

The optics were especially rough, given this decision followed Richardson's infamous tap-out, a moment late in the third quarter of a divisional game against the Houston Texans, when Richardson pulled himself out of the game because he was tired.

Richardson was reinserted into the starting lineup after two games of relief from Flacco, and finished out the 2024 regular season - except he didn't. After five more starts, Richardson strained his oblique and was out for the team's final two games.

And that has been the biggest negative of Anthony Richardson's career thus far. Richardson's extensive injury history in such a short time makes it nearly impossible to depend on him to brave the storm.

Below are Anthony Richardson's injuries by season:

By all accounts, Richardson defines what it means to be injury-prone.

He entered the league in 2023 as one of the biggest projects in recent history thanks to his concerning injury history, poor completion percentage, and inexperience at the position. Fast forward almost four years, and not much has changed for Richardson.

Richardson was injured in his second game in the NFL, a concussion that kept him out of the Colts' Week 3 matchup against the Baltimore Ravens.

He returned to the field a week later, in Week 4, but in the following game, just four games into his NFL career, Richardson suffered a season-ending Grade 3 AC joint sprain in his throwing shoulder, causing him to miss 13 games of his rookie season.

This abrupt loss was a brutal blow to a new era led by then-first-time head coach Shane Steichen, and unfortunately, Richardson's trajectory has remained the same.

Not only did Richardson suffer the two aforementioned injuries (oblique, back spasms) in his second season that kept him out for four weeks total, but his career-defining injury in 2025 is what officially shut the door on any injury-prone discourse.

During pre-game warmups of a Week 6 matchup against the Arizona Cardinals, Richardson suffered a freak injury to his orbital bone, leaving it fractured.

"The quarterback was using a band to stretch. However, when he attached the band to a rod in a locker and pulled it, the rod broke and a piece of the rod recoiled with the band, smashing into Richardson’s face at a high rate of speed," league sources told James Boyd of The Athletic.

Once this news was revealed, you almost had to feel bad for Richardson. He had just lost the starting job after a well-fought battle with Daniel Jones, and then he got injured in a freak accident and needed to have season-ending surgery.

Being fragile is one thing, but this was becoming unlucky and, quite frankly, cruel.

The Colts allowed Anthony Richardson to seek a trade elsewhere in the 2026 offseason, but after no trade suitors presented themselves, Richardson accepted his fate and vowed to make the most of his last season under contract in Indianapolis.

Richardson's rehab took up a solid portion of his offseason, but the fourth-year quarterback slowly but surely began to establish some confidence throughout the summer.

In a small sample size, Richardson played well in the preseason. Across three games and while splitting reps with second-year quarterback Riley Leonard, Richardson went 21-33 (63%) for 249 passing yards, 1 interception, was sacked three times, and also ran for 68 rushing yards and 1 touchdown on 10 carries.

Richardson has gone from QB1 to QB2 to QB1 to QB2 to QB3 to QB2. And now there's a world where he's starting games for the Colts in the regular season. It may have taken a long-overdue, mid-season firing and an uninspired start to the season, but it's a real possibility.

There are plenty of reasons to be against the notion of Anthony Richardson taking snaps, but with the way this season has gone, it may just be the best option.

Pleading The Case For Richardson

It may sound crazy.

I understand that Richardson's infamous tap-out was some people's breaking point, that his 50.6% career completion rate ranking amongst the worst of all quarterbacks in league history is borderline offensive, that his injury history suggests he won't last long anyways, or that the reported unprofessionalism that caused him to fall out of favor with Shane Steichen and Co. was others' last straw; but the season is over.

Not only that, the future is a blank canvas. It may already have some smudges in the form of no franchise quarterback or first-round pick, but it's a new opportunity to do something you couldn't achieve for the past decade.

And why not try to at least make amends with your failed fourth overall pick while you still have the chance?

Sure, I just provided several reasons not to, but the Colts have nothing to lose.

The Colts have parted ways with the man in charge of drafting Richardson and are left with the head coach, who many believe has given up on Richardson altogether, but the announcement about Ed Dodds' promotion to interim GM specifically stated that Shane Steichen and all non-personnel staff will report to ownership for the remainder of the season.

Dodds was one of the only Colts' decision-makers who wasn't all-in on Richardson as a prospect, at least not until late in the process, but given he only has so much say moving forward, turning to Richardson if Jones continues to struggle could be the only option.

Indianapolis' interim general manager will be prioritizing the future over the present, looking to trade away any player who can bring in valuable draft capital. The season is lost, and that's precisely why such a move should be on the table.

The future is most important, and although it looks like the 2-4 Colts may lose every remaining game and gift the New York Jets a Top 5 draft selection, there's no reason you can't switch up what got us here in the first place, while also doing what's best for the next era.

The Colts may see it through with Daniel Jones because of his aforementioned $88 million contract, but unless they're planning on him to be their veteran bridge quarterback in 2027, chances are his days are in Indianapolis are just as numbered as Richardson's.

Again, Shane Steichen said that Jones will remain the Colts' starting quarterback, but for how long?

If the Daniel Jones-led Colts offense looks just as bad against the Minnesota Vikings and the Jacksonville Jaguars as it has through six weeks so far, whatever delusional playoff aspirations that may still exist would officially disappear, opening the door for a "Why not?" return to Anthony Richardson.

If it's going to be bad, it should at least be fun bad.