Anthony Richardson Player's Tribune article: "Dear NFL GM's"

I thought AR may have had a heisman type year and our defense would have been a lot better than it was. Yes, I thought 8 and after the Utah game, maybe ten.

 

Yikes

 

I wish you were referring to the 2023 Gator football team...but sadly he left us with a giant mess at his first opportunity.

 

He inherited that giant mess and realized there was only so much he could do, time for the folks who get paid the big bucks to clean it up.

 

This is unpleasant, some more concrete conditions should be stipulated in the contract.

 

Manchild, we hardly knew ye …

https://youtube.com/shorts/DrJ2BXJ30vk?feature=share

 

I always hope for AR to have a great career. He is immensely talented, yet light on experience. In retrospect, we had one of the worst D's of in Gator history. Watching the Utah game, their O went though us like a hot knife through butter, saved by that last minute interception.. A sign of things to come. We couldn't stop anyone. AR had to score on almost every drive in order for us to win, and he almost did ( we were tied for the lead in least punts during the season), which means to me we scored often. Couple the need to score with arguably the worst receiving corps in the SEC and our horrible D, let's me give AR a giant pass for what he tried to do last season.

 

Lets rehash a few games:
Utah - saved by Burney's late game INT
UT - Probably AR's best game - zero defense, almost no stops.
LSU - AR came out smokin, opening series bomb to Shorter.
Defense - Non Existant. Question - How many punts has
UF forced against LSU in the last 3 games? 2 or is it 3?
FSU - Travis, Travis and more Travis, AR played great, (well in
the first half). Apparantly the plan was for AR/UF to
score every possession. Didn't work. Lose by 7.
OSU - Oh, a non championship bowl game, who cares?

Any defense AT ALL, UF wins UT, LSU, FSU games. (IMHO)
Change 6 wins to 9 wins.

Nor am I blaming coach Tony, He had a terrible hand to play.

Many are now saying that the recruiting and players available may have been, arguably, the worst since 79, and considering I was around in 79 and watched that defense 8 times, NOOO - The 79 defense was BETTER!

Thank you CDM and CTG - You guys went: 10-3, 11-2, 8-4, 6-7.
Not just that, on no. You guys had the greatest one season passing performance EVER by a UF QB, in the form of Kyle Trask and as good a recieving corp as you will ever see (and tight end) and WASTED IT with a high school defense.

Because for YOU GUYs, recruiting season was only a few weeks out of the year. Did you send noticces to Kirby Smart with everyones vacation schedules and "non-recruiting" weeks? or was it months??

Sharp stick in the eye..........
I'm sure you enjoyed your vacations at that time.

 

Me, to answer your question. I cared very much. That game was a national humiliation for us. And going “Meh, who cares?” in retrospect does absolutely zero to erase the egg that was smeared all over our face in that game. Recruits were watching that game by the way.

 

Just to clarify - As a fan I felt exactly the same.
It was not me who "didn't care" - but clearly UF has not been very motivated in the last two bowls. The "who cares" moniker goes on the players.

While it is clearly the staffs responsability to get kids ready to play, I am not dumping on Napier or Toney for last year.

Between NIL and players not wanting to participate for fear of getting hurt, or affecting draft status, it's clear to me one of the casualties of the "new rules" are bowl games.

IMO bowl games are now cash cows for advertisers. No one gives a s_it, the stands are empty and the good players don't show.
Yeah, i'm aware of the "Well it gives players more practice time, etc." - OK, I can't argue with that, but to me it's like an NFL pro bowl game.

Some will say - "It's a reward" - A reward FOR WHAT? Not making the playoffs?

I think it totally sucks, diminishes the game and the product.

UF is not the only program to have kids that don't want to play in these games.

But the masters of disaster have the solution - expand the playoffs. We are going to 12, and I imagine it will expand to 24 eventually, hell they may let everybody in.