Chris Ballard has had a lot of opportunities to find a long-term solution at quarterback during his time as the Colts’ General Manager and he’s tried a lot of different approaches to the position, but none of them have resulted in a clear win for the franchise.
This year’s attempt involves signing Daniel Jones to compete with Anthony Richardson for the starting job leading into the 2025 season. Jones was once seen as the answer for the Giants before injuries and poor play led to his 2024 release and Richardson has had issues on both of those fronts over his first two years in the NFL.
In an interview with the Colts’ in-house media team, Ballard said that he believes that the competition is going to help both players do their best work and that the team is going into it without any preconceived notions about who will wind up on top.
“Between Daniel and Anthony, you’re going to see a really good competition,” Ballard said. “It’s going to be a spirited competition, but I also think it’s going to be one where they help each other to grow too. We thought Daniel’s skillset, and Anthony’s skillset. There’s a lot of similarities there. So offensively, I think that’s going to help our offensive staff, so okay, we don’t have to make these wholesale changes with one guy or the other. We got to make the best decision for the team. Whatever the outcome is, the outcome is based on performance.”
Drafting Richardson fourth overall in 2023 was the biggest swing that Ballard has taken at the quarterback position, so bringing in Jones opens up the door for a pretty damning evaluation of that decision. Whichever way the decision goes, anything other than a trip to the playoffs might make it difficult for Ballard to continue selling himself as the guy with the right vision for the organization.
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