Examining the Colts QB run game and what’s sustainable in 2025

The Colts’ Anthony Richardson, Daniel Jones and Jonathan Taylor walk into a bar…

The 2024 season was a schematic journey for the Indianapolis Colts and Shane Steichen. Each week the staff put together a game plan that leaned into Anthony Richardson’s strengths, while masking his weaknesses.

Early in the season we saw an offense that struggled to stay efficient and relied on deep balls (the unequivocal strength of Richardson’s) that could flip the field and change the outcome of the game. While explosive plays are the goal of any offense, they’re also harder to complete. That’s why earlier in the year the Colts were losing the Time of Possession battle by significant margins. They couldn’t complete enough passes to keep possessions alive.

There were little quick game passing concepts, limited RPO’s compared to 2023, and limited screens to inflate completion percentages and keep the offense on schedule.

Part of the reason for that was Anthony Richardson’s struggles to execute those passing concepts. His footwork was all over the place, he wasn’t seeing the field as well as he did in 2023, and he was inaccurate in the short and intermediate areas of the field.

After the Joe Flacco experiment did not go the way Indianapolis had hoped, the Colts had to find a way to make Anthony Richardson work in the midst of a playoff push.

Instead of putting a square peg into a round hole, they leaned into Richardson’s strengths even further and evolved their offense into one of the most diverse run games the NFL has seen in a long time.

I charted all 168 runs in the games Richardson played in post-benching. The Colts had 36 unique runs, many of which included the element of the QB.

They had gap scheme runs, they had zone scheme runs, they had runs with motion, they had runs from condensed formations, they had runs with 1 TE, 2 TE, and 3 TE’s on the field, they had everything.

Most NFL teams don’t want to run their QB between the A and B gaps for obvious reasons. That’s where the big guys are. They want their QB out in space, near the sideline where they can protect themselves, and in situations where smaller DBs are the ones to bring them down. The Colts however, did not let that hold them back.

And the Colts saw a lot of success doing it. In many critical situations Richardson’s legs bailed them out of games late in the year. But it isn’t and wasn’t sustainable. You can’t take those type of hits for a 17 game season, especially with aspirations of playing beyond those 17 games.

---

Despite the risk of injury, it also isn’t going anywhere either. The Colts brought in Daniel Jones as competition for Anthony Richardson, and general manager Chris Ballard mentioned having a QB with mobility as a factor for signing him. The staff wants the QB run game to be a factor in every game they play in.

Daniel Jones is not the same runner as Anthony Richardson, but he is enough of a threat with the ball in his hands that defenses have to honor it. That allows the staff to construct a run game that opens things up for Jonathan Taylor and can take extra defenders out of the box.

A defense must play Cover Zero in order for the math to be in their favor. That’s why the QB run game is so lethal. The offense will always have one more guy in the box than the defense until they take that middle field safety and bring him into the run fit.

When Joe Flacco was in the game, defenses didn’t have to honor the QB run. That means the Colts have to block everything differently. With Richardson in the game, they can leave backside DE’s unblocked because they have to acknowledge that Richardson could pull the ball and make them wrong. But with Flacco, that DE can chase down the RB and make plays in the back field with nothing else to worry about except bringing down the ballcarrier.

The QB run game is a crucial part of the Steichen offense and what allowed the Colts to rank within the top 10 rushing offenses last year. Jonathan Taylor is better, life is easier for the offensive line, and the Colts ultimately are a better offense when they utilize it.

But with health and schematic balance proving to be factors in terms of long term success, the Colts have to be careful of tipping the scale too far in one direction. The QB run game is a deadly compliment to an offense, but it’s tough to create an offense entirely built around it— at least at the NFL level.

Regardless of who’s under center (or in the shotgun) for this offense in 2025, the dropback passing game must improve. They need to be able to consistently punish teams through the air using concepts that are easier to complete than Fades and Posts to Alec Pierce.

To use a recent March Madness reference, having a Walter Clayton who can hit a three from half court is nice, but none of his big time shots would have mattered if Florida couldn’t hit a layup.