Indianapolis Colts QB Anthony Richardson was the shooting star of the 2023 fantasy football season. His flashes of exceptional dual-threat production at QB have fantasy managers placing some very high expectations on him heading into his second year in the NFL.
Will Richardson live up to the hype in 2024?
Anthony Richardson’s 2024 Fantasy Forecast
In the two full games we saw Richardson play in 2023, he looked like a fantasy star in the making.
Anthony Richardson Fantasy Production in 2023 When Playing More Than 95% of the Offensive Snaps
- Week 1: 223 passing yards, 40 rushing yards, 3 total TDs (QB4 overall)
- Week 4: 200 passing yards, 56 rushing yards, 3 total TDs (QB2 overall)
Even in his Week 2 performance against the Houston Texans, Richardson scored two rushing touchdowns in the first half before exiting the game due to a concussion. That means Richardson topped 17 fantasy points in his first two and a half games on the field as a rookie. This glimpse into his fantasy ceiling rightfully has managers excited about his potential in 2024.
Yet, the old saying, “The best ability is availability,” in the world of fantasy football casts a cloud of unknown regarding Richardson’s fantasy outlook heading into his second year in the NFL.
Richardson missed a Week 3 game against the Baltimore Ravens due to the aforementioned concussion and suffered a season-ending shoulder injury in the first half of the Colts’ matchup against the Tennessee Titans, which abruptly brought his promising rookie year to an end.
In total, Richardson missed 13 games in his rookie season. Dual-threat quarterbacks tend to have a higher risk of injury due to the additional amount of hits they take on any given Sunday. Players like Deshaun Watson, Kyler Murray, and Justin Fields are nice dual-threat fantasy options when on the field, but all missed time last season due to injury.
To give you some context of when Richardson was on the field, he averaged 18.4 fantasy points per game — which includes the two games he was knocked out of the contest in the first half — which was the exact same mark set by Patrick Mahomes last season.
Richardson was nothing short of dynamic when on the field last year, which suggests Colts head coach Shane Steichen knows exactly how to use a weapon like Richardson under center.
His passing production was actually rather encouraging. Sure, it was a limited sample size, but considering Richardson was tagged with concerns in his prospect profile entering the league, it should be viewed as a positive that he was comfortable and efficient as a passer prior to his injury.
Additionally, the team selected the explosive Adonai Mitchell out to Texas to join both Michael Pittman Jr. and Josh Downs in the receiver room to give Richardson a true vertical weapon in this offense. At the very least, we should expect Mitchell to be a big upgrade over Alec Pierce, who produced a rough 0.87 yards per route run last season over his 95.2% snap share in 2023.
Richardson’s ADP is currently quite pricey at No. 51 overall in the fifth round as the QB6 overall. This puts him just behind C.J. Stroud but ahead of Joe Burrow in fantasy drafts.
The Richardson-Burrow debate is an interesting one seeing that Richardson has rushing production upside that the Bengals QB simply can’t touch. But Burrow’s passing production floor has previously been among the elite in the NFL.
Ultimately, this comes down to how you want to address the quarterback position as a whole. If you select Richardson in the fifth round because of his QB1 overall upside, then I would recommend pairing him up with a competent veteran passer like Aaron Rodgers or Matthew Stafford at the end of your draft as an insurance policy.