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

I’m sorry you don’t care about bowl games. The best I can say is you’re not alone. The team’s preparation and performance in the last three bowl games suggests they haven’t cared about them either. Correlation is not causation, of course, but the returns on our last few recruiting classes indicate that recruits do care about bowl games and do want to play for teams who want to win. I hope this staff is able to turn around the attitude of this team. We will see.

 

I like AR and hope he succeeds as an NFL QB, but there are some serious red flags for me around his accuracy/recognition, mental toughness and capacity for leadership that I think he might have a hard time overcoming.

this article is a PR fluff piece that says exactly the type of things you'd expect from a guy hoping to be drafted highly and doesn't change my mind either way.

 

Depends on who is doing the coaching. An Urban Meyer-coached team isn’t losing to Vanderbilt or Kentucky last year, regardless if Tebow or AR is the QB. You’re delusional if you believe otherwise.

 

If people can make up their own narratives about AR sitting out a bowl game, then I can come up with narratives for Trask playing in a bowl game.

 

Obviously we are all free to make up whatever we want, and to post whatever we want.
However, you cannot make up whatever facts you want...

And since you brought up AR and Trask, let's look at their histories and their facts...

Trask- stuck with the Gators through thick and thin- mostly thin.
Was passed over to play so many times, even when the starter in front of him was less than inspiring.
When that same starter finished the year very strong, Trask's head coach came to him to talk about transferring.
Trask replied "Why would I want to leave a place like this?"
Such loyalty, such dedication, such love for his team.
Then when his time came he delivered.

And then there is the bowl game...

• At the end of his FIFTH year, his dreams of an SEC title and a CFB playoff berth were in shambles.
• Unlike most bowl games, this one came just 11 days after 8 straight SEC games. No byes and no patsies in those 8 weeks. I'm sure KT was exhausted.
• His team hardly cared, as so many opted out. Including many of KT's top receivers.
• His coaching staff hardly cared, as the post game comments of his head coach showed.

Yet Trask played. He showed up and played. He didn't play well, but he played.
That's the sign of character, that's the sign of a leader.
You can disagree all you want, but show me one fact above that I got wrong.

AR...
Made noise about transferring in the middle of his 2nd year.
Led his team to 6-6 in his only year as a starter. Certainly a disappointing year with losses to Kentucky and Vandy.
Despite the fact that many NFL scout guys felt he should stay 1 more year, AR busted down the door to leave after just 3 years.
If there was Trask-type loyalty, dedication, or love for the team, it was hard to see in this decision to bolt at the first opportunity.

And then there is the bowl game...

• Despite his own team losing their #2 QB, he never seem to even consider joining back up to help his team.

So yeah- if you can't figure out why Gator Nation doesn't love AR the way it loves Trask, Tebow or others, maybe read the above a few times.

One guy has all the reason in the world to bolt, and he stayed. He had all the reasons in the world to sit the bowl game, and he plays.
The other guy has all the reason in the world to stay, and to play in the bowl game. And he (apparently) never gave it a 2nd thought.
He seemed to be saying "Let me outta here!!"

 

AR was terrible in those games and pretty good in others. He owns that.

 

Oh I think I’ve got it figured out.

 

Throwing for 400 yards and 3 TD/1 INT isn’t exactly “terrible.” But hey, the general consensus is he alone was responsible for the Gators 6 losses last season. And people are even blaming him for the bowl game loss he didn’t even play in. Will be very interesting to see who the scapegoat is for Gator losses in 2023.

 

Yeah the Vandy loss had nothing to do with the Vandy long snapper scoring on a muffed punt.

 

He played great in some games and bad in others.

 

Vandy shouldn’t win if they did that three times. That was pathetic,

 

Poor guy all he had to work with was: Percy Harvin, Andre Caldwell, Louis Murphy, Riley Cooper, David Nelson, Aaron Hernandez, the Pouncey twins, Brandon James, Chris Rainey, Jermaine Cunningham, Derrick Harvey, Carlos Dunlap, Justin Trattou, Brandon Spikes, Joe Haden, Major Wright, Ahmad Black and those were just the ones who ended up on NFL teams.

AR's best receiver (Piersall) would not have started on the 2007 team. The rest of the current receivers would probably have spent the entire season on the bench.
I don't know if anyone on last year's defense would have seen the field.
O'Cyrus with the Pouncey twins would have been fun though.

 

That’s all true but we may not have won either title without Tebow and Timmy probably doesn’t lose tho Vandy and Kentucky last year either. Tebow was just a far superior college player. AR has a shot to be the best nfl qb Florida has ever produced which isn’t all that high of a mark.

 

Do you?

It's pretty simple, really. AR is about to be the highest drafted Gators QB ever, yet his performance as a passer was nowhere near Spurrier, Matthews, Wuerffel, Grossman, Leak, Tebow, Grier, or Trask. What does that tell you? It tells you AR had the potential to be great, REALLY great, but underachieved. He missed way too many throws and lost way too many games. Blame the coach, blame the lack of talent around him, blame the defense. In this context, it's irrelevant. Is that fair? No, but it doesn't give AR an excuse for his shortcomings.

We all had high hopes for AR, and it just didn't work out how we wanted. That's why some fans are being hard on AR compared to other guys like "two star Trask" who greatly exceeded expectations.

 

Don't forget Trask was hurt on the last or second to last play of the Alabama game. He could barely walk. He was probably still hurt for the bowl game.

 

AR's stats in the Vandy game doesn't really tell the whole story. Most of those yards came in the 4th quarter as we were scrambling to get back in the game. Vandy was ok with giving up some yards at that point, but up to then they really concentrated on stopping our run game making AR beat them with his arm and our depleted wr corps. We couldn't consistently move the ball through the air.

Vandy was 128th in pass yards allowed last year.

But no, I still contend the major problem last year was not AR or the offense(AR generally improved at being a starting qb as the year went on). Our LBs and secondary groups were not good at all. I think AR's odds of longer term success in the NFL would have been improved by another year being a starter in college, but I cannot argue his decision when he'll be getting a direct deposit with a lot of digits before the decimal point. I wish him the best.

 

Like I’ve said before, if anyone was delusional enough to have high expectations for a recruit who came in as a project athlete with notable flaws as a passer, then in the words of DJ Khaled: “Congratulations - you played yourself.”

All it tells me is they received MUCH better coaching and development than AR did.

 

All QBs play banged up and hurt at some point. Even Anthony Richardson.

 

After AR was showing so many flashes of brilliance in limited time behind Emory Jones, I think we ALL had high expectations. We all saw the potential and dreamed of what he could do once he was given a shot to be "the guy" at QB. He got his chance this past season, and was wildly inconsistent. Should we have seen it coming? Maybe.

That may be true. I guess time will tell. But that's not the point, which I explained in my last post. You asked why AR doesn't get the same love as Trask, and I gave you a pretty damn good reason. You don't have to like it, but that's the way it is. If you have another theory, I'm all ears.

 

Where did I ask this?