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Factoid

Anthony Richardson

Colts will start Joe Flacco in Week 9

The Colts are moving Joe Flacco into the starting lineup. I don’t know that they had much of a choice. Anthony Richardson has been pretty terrible. He’s just not ready yet to be an NFL quarterback right now.

Richardson is completing only 44 percent of his passes, with way too many poor decisions and misfires. It’s just not happening, and it would probably get pretty ugly if they asked him to go out on Sunday against an aggressive Minnesota defense.

The move comes 10 starts into his career. They’ve been mostly underwhelming. In the 32-team era, only two other quarterbacks have had a lower completion percentage after their first 10 starts – Tim Tebow and Blaine Gabbert.

It’s early; they’ll keep working with him. But of the other 26 quarterbacks who completed under 55 percent in their first 10 starts, only four strongly turned around their careers – Eli Manning, Josh Allen, Matthew Stafford and Alex Smith.

LOWEST COMPLETION PERCENTAGE, FIRST 10 STARTS
YearPlayerComAttPctYdsTDInt
2010-11Tim Tebow11122948.51,626134
2011Blaine Gabbert14229148.81,51487
2023-24Anthony Richardson10921750.21,53578
2004-05• Eli Manning13927650.41,6661111
2002Joey Harrington18837350.42,0901115
2010-11John Skelton16732751.11,977913
2005-06J.P. Losman13025351.41,45078
2002-04Chad Hutchinson14528051.81,768108
2009Mark Sanchez13826552.11,7911016
2018• Josh Allen14627952.31,776711
2003-04Kyle Boller13726152.51,441711
2002-04A.J. Feeley18234652.62,0401217
2006Vince Young13826252.71,571910
2006-07Jason Campbell15429152.91,918129
2017DeShone Kizer16631353.01,823514
2005-06• Alex Smith13926253.11,655411
2007-08JaMarcus Russell14326953.21,66975
2009• Matthew Stafford20137753.32,2671320
2010Jimmy Clausen14226653.41,45237
2008-09Brady Quinn16430653.61,692107
2004-05Ken Dorsey16230153.81,601811
2002-03Patrick Ramsey18534353.92,3741210
2011Christian Ponder14927454.41,7541313
2002David Carr14827154.61,797911
2007-11Kellen Clemens15728754.71,76768
2006Bruce Gradkowski17031154.71,60499
2005Kyle Orton14526454.91,389811

For the short term, they’ll turn to Joe Flacco, and he should pump some life into the passing game, making Michael Pittman, Josh Downs and Alec Pierce look more viable. Flacco has played in three games this year, and he’s thrown multiple touchdowns in all of them. At Jacksonville, he passed for 359 yards and 3 TDs.

Flacco this week will work against a complex and aggressive Minnesota defense, but one that tends to allow production through the air. The Vikings currently rank next-to-last in pass defense, allowing even more yards than that Jaguars secondary that Flacco carved up earlier.

—Ian Allan

Fantasy Index