Whither AR

 I live two hours and change north and east of West 56th Street in Indianapolis, so I couldn't hear the quiver in Chris Ballard's innards even if there was one. I assume there isn't, at least yet. I also assume we'd never know otherwise, given the bulletproof confidence the Colts GM forever exudes.

But the Horsies lost another football game yesterday, putting up a hell of a fight on the road before the Houston Texans got 'em 23-20. And while you couldn't totally hang the loss on quarterback Anthony Richardson -- he did, after all, throw a 69-yard touchdown pass to Josh Downs -- he once again didn't resemble at all the quarterback Ballard and the Colts  keep telling us he is.

Or will be. Or something.

His numbers yesterday: 10-of-32 passing, 175 yards, one spectacular touchdown, one horrendous interception at the end of the first half. A  31.2 percent completion percentage; a 48.3 quarterback rating.

And maybe, if not yet in Chris Ballard's gut, a building quiver in the guts of True Blue fans everywhere: OMG we blew the quarterback pick. 

The Blob's position is that's still an overreaction, but one that becomes less over-reactive almost by the week. Richardson's anemic showing (save the bomb to Downs) followed a 10-of-24, 129-yard outing last week in a win over the punchless Dolphins. If you're keeping score at home, that makes him 20-of-56 for 304 yards in his last two starts, a 35.7 percent completion rate.

For the season, he's now 59-of-133 (44.4 percent) with four touchdowns and seven picks. Close observers keep saying they're seeing progress; the rest of us see regression from even last season's small sample size.

Which of course is not what you want to see when you take him with the No. 4 pick in the draft.

You take a quarterback with the No. 4 pick, as the Colts did in 2023, you're saying he's The Guy. You're putting the future of your franchise in his hands. You're expecting him, in most cases, to make an immediate impact, because that seems to be the business model these days.

See: C.J. Stroud. See: Caleb Williams. See: Jayden Daniels, Josh Allen, Kyler Murray, a bunch of others.

AR, on the other hand, came in as an admitted project of sorts, a work in progress of whom progress was supposed to come quickly and spectacularly. Instead, he got hurt.

Then he got hurt again. Then he missed most of his rookie season.

In his second year, he's already missed time because of injury, during which old head Joe Flacco came in and won a couple of games, throwing seven touchdown passes against one pick and completing 65.7 percent of his throws. The contrast with Richardson was glaring, and did little to quell the unease among the Colts faithful. Some are even saying now the Colts should bench Richardson and play Flacco the rest of the way.

That, too, is an overreaction, by the Blob's lights. For now, anyway.

This is because I watched bits and pieces of Colts-Texans yesterday, and not everything was AR's fault. He was victimized more than once by drops on balls that were straight money. His offensive line leaked like an abandoned shack, allowing sundry Texans to chase him around the backfield and sack him five times. 

And yet ...

And yet.

A season-and-a-half in, and Anthony Richardson is still the same phenomenal physical specimen we saw on draft day 18 months ago.

But we still don't know if he is, or ever will be, an NFL quarterback.