When the Buffalo Bills traded up to select Wyoming’s Josh Allen with the seventh overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft, they were getting an extremely talented dual-threat cannon-arm quarterback who was extremely raw and had accuracy issues.
The same could be said for Anthony Richardson, who the Indianapolis Colts selected with the fourth overall pick in the 2023 NFL Draft. Despite Richardson emerging from a much bigger college program, coming from the Florida Gators, he’d only made 13 starts in college, leaving him with a minute amount of experience.
Two years into his career, Richardson, who’s still just 22, has been one of the NFL’s most inaccurate quarterbacks, but that could change this offseason.
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Anthony Richardson working with passing mechanics coach to improve accuracy
As incredible as MVP finalist Josh Allen is now, his career started with some warts too. Allen completed just 52.8% of his passes as a rookie. His accuracy improved in his sophomore season, but not by much, finishing with a 58.8% completion rate. He hasn’t finished with a completion rate worse than 63.3% in his past five seasons, showing incredible development in the accuracy department.
Now, after completing 59.5% of his passes as a rookie and 47.7% percent of his passes as a sophomore, Richardson is taking steps to improve this offseason.
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According to ESPN’s Indianapolis Colts insider Stephen Holder, Richardson will be working on refining his throwing motion this offseason. His plans include working with biometric expert Chris Hess, who helped Josh Allen improve his accuracy too.
“He also has plans to work with biometric expert Chris Hess, who counts Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen among his clients whose throwing motions he has helped refine. During a recent NFL Films segment, Allen called Hess “the most influential person in my mechanical career.” Allen credits Hess with helping him dramatically increase his completion rate from 52.8% as a rookie to 69.2% by his third season.”
Holder on Richardson’s offseason plans
With Richardson coming off of offseason shoulder surgery from 2023 to 2024, that made working on his game much more difficult. Now that his arm is healthier, Richardson should be able to enter the offseason with nothing but growth on his mind.
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