Indianapolis Colts franchise star Anthony Richardson had successful surgery on his injured throwing shoulder on October 24th. What kind of success might he have in his first year back and over the course of his career? According to owner Jim Irsay, Richardson is recovering well and there were no new surprises when the surgeon got to work. At this point, the young player has no expected return date.
It can be easily surmised, or at least hoped, that Richardson will be fully healthy and ready to go when the 2024 regular season gets underway. According to the Boston Children’s Hospital, recovery from surgery on a Grade 3 AC joint injury can take anywhere from six to 12 weeks for the patient to regain full motion.
However, according to Mass General Brigham, recovery from surgery could take several months to heal and up to at least six, for those who missed what is precisely a Grade 3 AC joint sprain.
A complete AC joint tear or rupture of both main ligaments defines a grade 3 AC joint sprain or shoulder separation. With severe pain, tenderness, and swelling of the shoulder, moving the shoulder becomes quite difficult. A bump on your shoulder will be heavily pronounced. The range of motion of the shoulder will be hampered, and stability is often greatly impacted by the lack of ligament strength.
So, in doing some quick math with Richardson having his surgery at the end of October he should be fully healthy, barring any setbacks, and proceeding at a regular standard rate of time around the end of April or into May. Now, it should be noted that not everyone heals the same way nor does every recovery go smoothly. So, the previous statement about him being fully healthy around April or May is just an educated guess.
It’s possible he could heal faster and be ready sooner. The Colts’ organization could have him take it a little slower and not rush him. Again, a factor that went into this decision was the fact that the Colts did not want to rush their star player back out onto the field. They appear to have learned their lesson from when they had another generational talent in their organization in that of Andrew Luck.
As previously mentioned, there will be a lot of questions between now and when we see Richardson take the game day field for the first time, as to what to expect from him. Again, something that needs to be pointed out and reminded is that no two players are the same. No two players’ injuries and recoveries are the same. Every human, their injury, and recovery are different but may share similarities. There have been six NFL quarterbacks who have suffered AC joint sprains and have had varying degrees of success afterward.
Related: 2023 NFL QB rankings
Eli Manning: The first of many
Eli Manning, the two-time Super Bowl winner and MVP, suffered a shoulder injury in just his fourth NFL season. Prior to this, he was completing just 54.1% of his passes for 3,337 yards on average (196.3 per game). After injuring his shoulder early in the 2007 season, which he never missed a game, he proceeded to throw for 3,336 yards with a 56.1% completion rate while leading the league in interceptions. These were the worst numbers he put up outside of his rookie season.
In his first season after suffering the AC joint contusion, he completed 60% of his passes for 3,238 yards while averaging 202.4 yards per game on his way to winning his first Super Bowl and defeating New England. Over the remaining 12 seasons of his career, from 2008 to 2019 in which he missed just 13 games total (12 of them in his final season), he completed 61.9% of his passes for 45,638 yards while averaging 255 a game. His completion percentage only dipped under 60% twice and he threw for more than 3,500 yards in every season except for two seasons. He did unfortunately still lead the league in interceptions two more times in his career. Needless to say, Manning continued on with a good career after sustaining his shoulder injury.
Sam Bradford was the first overall pick in the 2010 draft by the then-St. Louis Rams. His NFL career was one filled with many injuries and of course the question of how good he could have been. But back in 2009, his last year in college, he suffered an injury to his AC joint not once but twice.
For his collegiate career, Bradford completed 67.6% of his passes and appeared in 74% of his career games. However, upon entering the NFL he completed a career 62.5% of his passes and appeared in just 65% of his career games during his eight years. In his first year after his injury, which also happened to be his rookie debut, he completed 60% of his passes and threw for 3,512, averaging 219.5 yards per game.
He also injured his AC joint of his non-throwing shoulder in 2015. So, it’s hard to glean a lot from Bradford’s career as he never played on any winning team, nor had a lot of support around him. Despite also being injured a lot.
The closest comparisons to Anthony Richardson
Quite possibly the closest comparison to Anthony Richardson is Matthew Stafford. Again, these two are not the same and only share some similarities. In just Stafford’s second season (2010), just three games into, in fact, he suffered a season-ending AC joint injury. And at the time of this injury, there were legit questions if Stafford was a bust and could handle an NFL season after just playing a total of 13 games over his first two seasons. This all sounds very similar to what is happening with Richardson.
But back to Stafford though. The season immediately following his injured shoulder he led the league in pass attempts with 663 (and in 2012 with 727 pass attempts) while completing 63.5% of his passes for 5,038 yards, averaging 314.9 yards per game. This was also the first year in a string of eight consecutive seasons that saw him start every game.
During those eight seasons, he completed 63.1% of passes for a total of 35,724 (averaging 4,465.5 a year) while averaging 279.1 yards per game. And even over the last 12 years of his career, not counting his current season it’s not yet completed, he’s completed 63.9% of passes for 49,280 yards (averaging 4,106.7 a year), while averaging 276.9 yards per game.
A player who is somewhat similar to Richardson, he even views his own game similarly, is Cam Newton. Both players only played one collegiate season where they exceeded 10 games. Then both proceeded to head to the NFL afterward. And now both players experienced an AC joint injury while in the league.
Newton suffered his injury in December Week 14 of the 2016 season. He ended up just starting 14 out of the 16 games but he did play in 15 of the aforementioned 16 games. During the final three games of his season, he never reached the 60% completion rate while tossing five interceptions compared to four touchdowns. Unfortunately, this season marked the beginning of the end of his career.
In the 2017 season, the one immediately following his injury he threw for 3,302 yards while completing 59.1% of his passes for 206.4 yards per game. These were all declines from the prior year.
Prior to the 2016 season, he completed 59.6% of his passes, averaging 483.6 attempts a game, for 18,263 yards (averaging 3,652.6 per year), and 234.1 yards per game. Newton was averaging 7.6 yards per pass attempt. After his shoulder injury, his numbers were as follows 60.4% completion rate on 342.7 attempts for 14,119 yards (averaging 2,353.2 per year), and 201.7 yards per game. Meanwhile, his yards per attempt fell to 6.9 as well. He’d also only have one more winning season.
Another player whose style of play is somewhat similar to that of Richardson’s is Justin Fields. In his first season as a starter Fields ended up missing the final two games of the season due to injury. Now, Fields injured his left, non-throwing, AC joint but he was still experiencing enough pain that Chicago eventually shut him down.
This season isn’t yet completed but Fields is again dealing with another injury. However, prior to the injury, he was experiencing his highest completion percentage (61.7), yards per game (200.2), and yards per attempt (7.4). We’ll have to see if he can keep up this level of productivity.
Another player who also hurt his throwing shoulder this season is Derek Carr of New Orleans. The team the Colts will face this upcoming week. He injured his shoulder in the team’s Week 3 loss. Similar to Richardson, Carr was not able to finish the game and his backup Jameis Winston was called into play.
Unlike Richardson though, Carr has not yet opted for surgery and is continuing to play. One final reminder that not all injuries, players, and injured players are the same. And following Carr’s game-to-game performance we’ll get a look at what possibly Richardson might have been able to do if he didn’t elect to have season-ending surgery.
In Carr’s Week 4 game against Tampa Bay, he completed just 62.2% of his passes for a meager 127 yards and 3.4 yards per attempt. Viewing his play it was painful to watch. He was unable to complete any of his five 20-plus air-yard throws. He was only able to complete two passes of 10-plus air yards. And even with a closer look 13 of his total 23 completed passes went behind the line of scrimmage.
Another game in which Carr struggled to push the ball downfield was his matchup against Jacksonville. Some of that is because of the style of defense Jacksonville plays and some of it is because of Carr’s injured shoulder. How well his shoulder feels and how many hits he takes during the course of a game will determine how successful New Orleans’ passing attack will be.
Again, while it’s disappointing to see Anthony Richardson be lost for the season. Seeing the results of some of the other NFL quarterbacks who have suffered AC joint injuries, it appears that he made a smart choice. And seeing just how much he’s already grown and developed while being with the Colts this season, there’s very little doubt that he will continue to develop even if it’s not visible on the field.