Stampede Blue
The 2025 Colts look a lot like the 2019-2014 Colts — a lot on the ball overall, but who’s the quarterback? Here are three Secret Superstars at other positions who could help transcend that serial issue.
Jacoby Brissett. Philip Rivers. Carson Wentz. Matt Ryan. Gardner Minshew. Anthony Richardson.
The Indianapolis Colts have certainly gone through a crazy quilt of quarterbacks since Andrew Luck’s bombshell retirement announcement on Aug. 24, 2019. The hope, of course, was that Richardson — the fourth overall pick in the 2023 draft — would bring that to an end with the same kind of stability the franchise once had as the envy of the non-Green Bay Packers portion of the NFL at the game’s most important position. But hey — when you go from Peyton Manning to Luck with one collapsible season in-between, maybe you’re due for some variance.
Now, of course, there are all kinds of questions regarding Richardson’s availability and consistency. With just 15 total starts in his first two NFL seasons, the development needed for this athletic marvel hasn’t really happened. And while Richardson has been a force at times in two ways — as a runner and as a deep passer — the rest of the story is still very much in question. The dreaded “right shoulder soreness” this year doesn’t exactly help the long-term plan, either... and when your general manager is now talking about your alleged franchise quarterbacks in the same terms used for ex-journeymen who finally saw the light well into their careers, and after multiple moves, that’s probably not great.
Which is why the Colts are also banking on Daniel Jones, the former sixth overall pick of the New York Giants, who doesn’t have a whole lot of spectacular stuff to show in his own NFL career.
If the 2025 Colts are to back out of a recent history that includes far more starting quarterbacks than winning seasons, it will likely be on every other roster position to make it so. Which is why the under-the-radar guys on the roster are so important.
In the continuation of our “Hidden Gems” series, we look at one underrated veteran, one underrated free-agent signing, and one underrated draft pick for a Colts organization that has it pretty much on point everywhere else... but just how far can you get in today’s NFL without the quarterback who can help to define everything?
With all due respect to Gus Bradley, it’s tough to be a defensive back in a system where there aren’t a lot of pressure and coverage switches from pre- to post-snap. Especially in today’s NFL, where you have more and more defensive coordinators changing the picture as drastically as possible. Bradley’s more static philosophies seemed to be a primary reason the Colts moved on after three seasons, replacing him with ex-Bengals DC Lou Anarumo.
With that in mind, and after reviewing his tape, I tend to think of Jaylon Jones as one of the...
