Anthony Richardson wants a trade, and the Colts would love to trade him. But what has been described as a “soft market” by Adam Schefter of ESPN leaves the quarterback with the team for now . . . and maybe the foreseeable future.
Richardson skipped the beginning of the team’s voluntary offseason program, but he showed up May 4 for Phase 2 of the workouts.
“The Colts are still giving me a chance to go out there and work, work hard and potentially get on the field,” Richardson said, via the Indianapolis Star. “Glad to be able to stay in the NFL and put the work in. Just showing up at OTAs, it was a blessing in disguise for me, because I just wanted to work and they allowed me to do that so I’m thankful for that.”
Richardson, the No. 4 overall pick in 2023, lost the starting job to Daniel Jones last season. Coach Shane Steichen last week sidestepped a question about whether Richardson would compete with Riley Leonard, a 2025 sixth-round pick, for the backup job to Jones.
Richardson didn’t get into specifics about his future.
“If I don’t put that work in to be a better player then I won’t be in the NFL,” Richardson said. “I just want to work hard and constantly think about my opportunity that I have now and try to take advantage of it.”
Richardson is recovering from a right eye injury after a freak pregame accident on Oct. 12 that left him with a fractured orbital bone.
Colts Clips
NFL Network lost its schedule-release show. It’s nevertheless gaining a late-season Saturday doubleheader.
In Week 16, on the day after Christmas, NFLN will televise a game at 4:30 p.m. ET and 8:00 p.m. ET.
The schedule identifies four potential games for the two slots: Buccaneers-Falcons, Bengals-Colts, Commanders-Vikings, and Panthers Steelers.
The decision as to which games will slide from Sunday to Saturday will be made during the season.
Coupled with a Thursday night game and three Christmas Day games, Week 16 will have 10 total windows — one more than Thanksgiving week. That leaves only eight games to be played on the Saturday afternoon windows.
The Colts finished 31st in the league in passing yards allowed during the 2025 season and one way to improve on that ranking would be to put more pressure on opposing quarterbacks.
Defensive end Laiatu Latu will be part of that effort and defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo thinks the 2024 first-round pick is up to the task. Latu posted 8.5 sacks last year and Anarumo said in an interview for the team’s website that he thinks that number is going to go up because of the way Latu has built himself up over his first two professional seasons.
“He’s not built like a typical defensive end,” Anarumo said. “Great lower body, strong, but when you see him up top, his upper body wasn’t as developed. He’s done a great job of getting stronger over his career so far. He’s a jack of all trades. He likes different things off the field. He is going to be unbelievable as he continues his process as a football player. He was on his way to 10 plus sacks last year, I think he’ll get there this year without a doubt. He’s always dialed in as a worker, as a teammate. Everything about him says team.”
The Colts added Arden Key, Micheal Clemons, fifth-round pick George Gumbs, and sixth-rounder Caden Curry to their edge options this offseason, but they’ll be looking to Latu to lead that group’s contribution to what they hope will be a thornier defense in 2026.
The Chiefs didn’t make the playoffs in 2025, but the release of the schedule for the 2026 season showed that the NFL still sees them as a marquee attraction.
Kansas City is scheduled for six primetime games and two of them come in the first two weeks of the season. They’ll be home against the Broncos on Monday night in Week 1 and back at Arrowhead Stadium to face the Colts on Sunday night in Week 2.
The scheduling suggests that the league believes Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes will be playing after recovering from last season’s torn ACL, but their head coach Andy Reid said on NFL Network Thursday that the team did not speak to the league about Mahomes’s health as part of the scheduling process. Reid did give another positive update on how things are going, however.
“He’s doing great right now and that’s kinda how you gotta go about this,” Reid said. “People go ‘well, he’s ahead of schedule.’ Who made the schedule? Everybody’s different, let’s just take it day by day. Nobody is spending more time than he is rehabbing, he spends seven hours here going through it. He hasn’t missed a day and he wants more, all the things that are Patrick Mahomes. Let’s see where we are at as we go forward as we get a little bit closer to the game.”
Broncos quarterback Bo Nix is coming off of a broken ankle and Reid joked that the league might have scheduled that as the opener as “motivation” for the two quarterbacks as they rehab, but said the scheduled won’t determine any of the team’s plans.
“He’s making progress, but you don’t know,” Reid said. “That’s the reality of it. You’re not going to put the player in a position where he can’t tend to himself on the football field.”
The league will continue to pay close attention to that progress in hopes of welcoming Mahomes back to the field on a grand stage.
We don’t know if Fernando Mendoza will be starting at quarterback for the Raiders in Week 1 of the regular season, but we do know who the Raiders will be playing in the first overall pick’s potential debut.
The NFL’s schedule reveal on Thursday night shows that the Raiders will host the Dolphins at 4:25 p.m. ET on Sunday, September 13. The game will be on Fox.
Mendoza will have to get the nod over Kirk Cousins in order to start for the Raiders. Offseason addition Malik Willis is expected to make his first appearance for the Dolphins. Both teams will definitely have head coaches making their offseason debut as Las Vegas hired Klint Kubiak in February and Miami hired Jeff Hafley in January.
Sunday will also feature a pair of divisional games in the late afternoon window. The Packers will visit the Vikings while the Commanders will be in Philadelphia to renew their acquaintance with the Eagles. The NFC North matchup will be on CBS while the NFC East clash will be broadcast by Fox.
The other late game on Sunday afternoon will see the Cardinals visiting the Chargers on CBS. Arizona could have Jacoby Brissett, Gardner Minshew or rookie Carson Beck at quarterback for that contest.
The 1 p.m. ET games will send the Bills to Houston for a date with the Texans while the Browns go on the road against the Jaguars. The Colts will host the Ravens, the Saints will visit the Lions, the Buccaneers will travel to Cincinnati for Dexter Lawrence’s first game as a Bengal, and the Steelers will kick off the Mike McCarthy era — with or without Aaron Rodgers — at home against the Falcons.
Previous reports revealed that the Jets will be in Tennessee and that the Bears will head to Charlotte to face the Panthers. The Jets-Titans game will be on CBS along with the Bills-Texans, Ravens-Colts and Browns-Jaguars games. All the other 1 p.m. games will be on Fox.
The entire Week 1 slate will kick off on Wednesday, September 9 with a Patriots-Seahawks Super Bowl rematch in Seattle on NBC. Thursday will bring a Netflix game between the 49ers and Rams in the NFL’s first game in Melbourne and Sunday night will find the Cowboys at MetLife Stadium to meet the Giants on NBC’s Sunday Night Football. Those games were all announced ahead of Thursday’s full schedule reveal, which was also the case for the ESPN Monday night game between the Broncos and Chiefs in Kansas City.
All of the international matchups for the 2026 NFL season were announced on Wednesday morning.
We already knew the first two games on the schedule. The 49ers and Rams will meet in the NFL’s first-ever game in Melbourne, Australia in Week 1 while the Ravens and Cowboys will head to Brazil to play a game in Rio in Week 3.
There will be three straight weeks of games in London kicking off the next week. The Colts will face the Commanders at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in Week 4 and the Eagles and Jaguars will square off in the same place the next week. The Jaguars will stay in London to take on the Texans at Wembley Stadium in Week 6.
From there, it will be on to Paris for the first time in league history. The Steelers will battle the Saints at Stade de France in Week 7.
The Bengals-Falcons matchup in Madrid in Week 9 was announced earlier this week and it will be followed by a Patriots-Lions clash at Allianz Arena in Munich the next weekend. The NFL’s return to Mexico City will come in Week 11 when the Vikings and the 49ers square off on Sunday Night Football.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has talked about his desire to see the league play international games each week and the NFL is moving closer to that goal in 2026.
Long-time NFL assistant coach Tom Moore hasn’t retired, after all. The 87-year-old offensive guru will return to where it all started.
Iowa.
Via Scott Dochterman of The Athletic, Moore will serve as senior consultant to the head coach and offensive advisor at the school where Moore played quarterback from 1958 through 1960. He also started his coaching career there, from 1961 to 1962.
Moore’s coaching career after leaving Iowa took him to Dayton, Wake Forest, Georgia Tech, Minnesota, the New York Stars of the WFL, and Minnesota again before becoming an NFL assistant coach in 1977.
He spent 13 seasons with the Steelers, four with the Vikings, three with the Lions, and one with the Saints.
Moore arrived with the Colts in 1998, Peyton Manning’s rookie season. Moore served as Manning’s offensive coordinator for the first 11 years of his career, before taking on a senior position in 2009 and 2010.
Moore then went to the Jets for a year, the Titans for a year, the Cardinals for five years (with head coach Bruce Arians). After taking 2018 off, Moore reunited with Arians in Tampa Bay, where Moore worked as an offensive consultant from 2019 through 2025.
In all, Moore has won four Super Bowl rings — two with the Steelers (1978, 1979), one with the Colts (2006), and one with the Buccaneers (2020). Now, 64 years after leaving Iowa, his career is coming full circle.
The Texans signed running back Evan Hull on Monday, the team announced.
Hull was among the tryout players the Texans had in their rookie minicamp.
Hull, 25, entered the NFL as a fifth-round pick of the Colts in 2023. He has also played for the Steelers and Saints, rushing for 49 yards on 20 carries and catching two passes for 12 yards in his career.
The team cut tight end Luke Lachey in a corresponding move.
Lachey, a seventh-round draft pick from Iowa in 2025, spent last season on the Texans’ practice squad. He is the son of former NFL offensive tackle Jim Lachey.
Jacksonville has added a veteran running back.
The Jaguars announced on Monday that they’ve signed Ameer Abdullah.
Abdullah, who turns 33 in June, spent last season with the Colts, mainly playing special teams. However, he did have 60 yards rushing with one touchdown, along with 16 catches for 99 yards.
Abdullah spent the previous three seasons with the Raiders, tallying 311 rushing yards with two TDs plus 40 catches for 261 yards with three touchdowns in 2024.
A Lions second-round pick in 2015, Abdullah has appeared in 154 games with 26 starts for Detroit, Minnesota, Carolina, Las Vegas, and Indianapolis.
Additionally, the Jags announced they’ve re-signed offensive lineman Sal Wormley, placed offensive lineman Jordan White on the reserve/retired list, and waived running back Ja’Quinden Jackson.
Three years after the Colts rolled the dice on quarterback Anthony Richardson with the fourth overall pick in the draft, his career enters a new phase. He seems to be embracing that.
It’s the smart move. After skipping the first two weeks of the offseason program, Richardson showed up. He’s seemingly all in.
After hoping for a trade that never materialized before or during the draft, it had to be difficult to welcome a situation that has not gone well. Thrust into action as a rookie before he was ready. Benched temporarily during his second season. Dropped to No. 2 behind Daniel Jones during training camp of his third year.
To make things worse, a freak accident left him with a fractured orbital bone and temporary vision loss, wiping out his chance to salvage the season after Jones suffered a ruptured Achilles tendon.
Both sides seemed to be interested in moving on. With no trade — and with a fully-guaranteed compensation package of $5.69 million in 2026 — the Colts have no reason to cut Richardson and pay all but the minimum for a player with his experience level ($1.145 million). A single injury could open the door for a trade, allowing the Colts to avoid more of the money owed, and to a obtain mid-to-low-round draft pick (which is much better than nothing at all).
Richardson has every reason to put in the work and be ready to play. He could (should) win the backup job over Riley Leonard. If Jones suffers an injury, Richardson would then get a chance to play. With free agency looming for Richardson next March, it could become a golden opportunity to set up a second act.
However it plays out, this year is a reset for Richardson. He’s not the starter. He’s not competing to be the starter. He needs to focus on working and developing and positioning himself for an opportunity that could come, at any time.
Jones has played a full season only once in his seven-year career. Chances are that Richardson will get a chance, at some point. His best move is to do everything he can to be ready for that chance when it comes, because that chance could change everything.
