The Colts have brought in a player to be their next franchise quarterback, selecting Florida’s Anthony Richardson at No. 4 overall on Thursday night.
Leading up to the first round, one of the potential negatives on Richardson was his lack of experience. He started only 13 games at Florida, 12 of which were in 2022.
But even with that lack of playing time — and a 54 percent completion rate in 2022 — Ballard didn’t want to go as far as saying Richardson will have a “redshirt” year as a rookie.
“He’s got to come in and earn his way like every player we bring in. Let’s not expect him to be Superman from Day One,” Ballard said. “I think history has shown there’s not many of them that are Superman from Day One. Some of them it takes two, three years for them to become a really good player. … It’s the one area where teams that, the pressure for these guys after one or two years — back 10, 15 years ago, guys would get year three, four, five. Think about it. Terry Bradshaw, he might have never played in today’s NFL. It took him time in Pittsburgh.
“We’ve got to let these guys develop and play. They’re going to have some struggles and then they’ve got to work through the struggles and eventually, their talent, the more they play, their talent will come to life.”
Ballard also noted that while the Colts had some conversations with the Cardinals about potentially moving up to No. 3 overall, eventually the club decided to sit and wait at No. 4.
And it worked out that they got the quarterback Ballard said they had been targeting for about a month.
“I think you all know well enough, we’re excited, we’re excited to get Anthony,” Ballard said. “Now we’ve got to go play. Now you’ve got to go prove it. Damn right I’m excited. Then you sober up and say, ‘OK, now we’ve got to go play and make it work.’”