Rinse. Repeat.

 Stop me if you've heard this before ...

The Indianapolis Colts handed the Pittsburgh Steelers their first ding of the season yesterday, and the backup quarterback was the guy who delivered it.

That's because the starting quarterback, and presumptive Future Of The Franchise, got hurt. Again.

Once more Anthony Richardson took off running, and when he got tackled he came up lame. Landed hard on his hip, it seems. Limped off the field. Later came running back onto the sideline looking as good as new, went back in the game ...

And the Colts brain trust (apparently missing the "brain" part) immediately dialed up another designed run for him.

At the end of which he got blown up by the Steelers' Minkah Fitzpatrick -- who, depending on one's perspective, is either a dirty-ass player or just a dude who hits really hard.

In any case, that was the end of Richardson's day. He got up hurt again, and now it remains to be seen if his hip is just your standard NFL owie, or something more serious.

And on we go, on we go, down this Yellow Nicked Road. Richardson has now started eight games in his young NFL career, and he's finished just half of them. He played five games last year and then was gone for the season with a shoulder injury. This year he made it all the way to game four before having to hobble off early. Seventy-five-year-old Joe Flacco, played by Gardner Minshew in the original version of this tale, brought the Colts home.

"Oh, come on! " you're saying now. "Joe Flacco's not 75! Why, he's not eligible for Social Security for a couple more years at least!"

OK, so I misspoke. Flacco is 75 only in NFL years; chronologically, he's a mere pup of 39. And that's aside from the point anyway.

The point being, maybe it's time now to start wondering if Anthony Richardson is a latter-day version of Robert Griffin III.

Griffin, you might recall, had a hell of a rookie season for the Washington Football Team, throwing for 3,200 yards and 20 touchdowns and completing 65.6 percent of his throws. Then he took off on a scamper one day and got hurt.

Then he got hurt again.

Then he got hurt again, and kept on getting hurt.

By the time he was 30, he was a walking trauma unit, and out of the league. After starting 28 games and throwing 36 touchdown passes in his first two seasons, he started just 14 and threw just seven sixes in the five years that followed.

Now, this is not to say AR is headed down a similar path, but the dreaded tag of "injury-prone" is waiting just offstage, and it has its lines ready. Maybe it's just bad luck, this early spate of injuries. Or maybe it just comes with the territory when your quarterback is built like a linebacker and enjoys delivering a blow like one.

Or how about this: Maybe, when he's no longer 22 with the aura of invincibility that comes with that, he'll learn to pick his spots, protect himself, and not try to throw the ball through a brick wall every time just because he has a cannon for an arm.

Maybe.

Then again, maybe he really is injury-prone. And what we're getting now is just what we'll get from him for as long as he lasts.

Rinse, repeat: Today in nightmare scenarios if you're the Colts.