Former Florida Gators quarterback Anthony Richardson was named the backup to Daniel Jones for the Indianapolis Colts to start the 2025 season. The two QBs had been in a battle for the starting job, but it also felt obvious which way the battle was going to go, especially after Richardson took a crunching sack to open preseason play.
And while Richardson still has a sky-high ceiling that Jones could only dream of, this fork in the road for Richardson's young NFL career also isn't surprising to anyone who paid attention to him at Florida.
Anthony Richardson to start 2025 as a backup
The problem for Richardson in the NFL has been the same concerns we here at Hail Florida Hail expressed back in 2022, when it was obvious he was going to declare for the NFL Draft:
We wrote back in November of 2022 that:
"And while Gators fans were mostly happy with Richardson's performance this year, that doesn't mean there aren't some major red flags for the next level.