Snake oil draft
Remember when the Internet tried to sell us on Anthony Richardson?
As Seahawks fans try to ignore a quarterback controversy with Sam Darnold that isn’t even real, Thursday’s double news drop about the Steelers signing Aaron Rodgers and Anthony Richardson’s extended absence due to a shoulder injury serve as reminders of stories that we DON’T have to deal with this summer.
Rodgers was only floated as a longshot fallback option if Seattle parted with Geno Smith and didn’t land Darnold, but before the draft two years ago rumors of the Seahawks interest in Richardson were so prevelant that fans may be excused if they pre-ordered his jersey. Based on how his career has gone to this point, it may not be too late to salvage that purchase.
Through two seasons, Richardson has started 15 games, completed 50.6% of his pass attempts, thrown 11 touchdowns vs. 13 interceptions, fumbled 12 times, and tapped out of a game due to tiredness once. Richardson has also suffered three separate injuries that caused him to miss games (concussion, shoulder sprain, hip sprain) and he will now be out until at least training camp, which is the last thing a quarterback needs in the midst of a competition for the starting job.
Although I can’t say I’m above being petty over “freezing cold takes” that I’ve always disagreed with, like the Seahawks using a top-5 pick on a quarterback who probably should have never even started the (very) few games that he did in college, today’s newsletter is about the sliding door moment that saved John Schneider’s job (obviously not Pete Carroll’s) and not just the personal victory that some of us feel because “Twitter’s favorite son” of the 2023 draft doesn’t seem long for this league.
Although I did write several times before and after the draft that Seattle made no sense to me as a landing spot for a quarterback who, more than anything else, needed to play more football and was really bad at it when he played.
Could they have wanted Richardson? I mean, they could have. We know for sure that in the last 14 years, the Seahawks have wanted hundreds of prospects who they didn’t get. It could be that they wanted Anthony Richardson. I think it’s better for both parties that they didn’t get the chance.
There were so many tweets, articles, and podcasts about how great it would be if Richardson spent a year or two behind Smith (it didn’t help that the Seahawks appeared to have genuine interest in him) but starting him would have been the same as tanking, while sitting him would be the same as failing him.
He’s been even worse than the skeptics expected
Two years after getting his first opportunity to be a head coach, Indy’s Shane Steichen has a 17-17 record and knows that his job is on the line if he can’t make the playoffs with Richardson, Daniel Jones, or sixth round pick Riley Leonard. The Colts have invested three second round and one third round pick into receivers, but haven’t been able to develop them as hoped because of Richardson:
Adonai Mitchell caught 8-of-29 targets (27%) from Richardson in 2024 compared to 58% from Joe Flacco
Josh Downs caught 23-of-42 (55%) compared to 75% from Flacco
Michael Pittman caught 41-of-68 (60%) compared to 65% from Flacco
Alec Pierce caught 18-of-39 (46%) compared to 63% from Flacco
How many Seahawks receivers would have had to suffer over the last two years (when Richardson is even healthy enough to play) because of the argument that “you can’t pass on a generational athlete at QB regardless of how bad he is”?
The never-afraid-to-faceplant Mike Salk wanted the Seahawks to trade up for Richardson:
So while there are options, there aren’t any perfect matches. And if you can’t get a perfect fit, why not try to get the player with the absolute highest upside?
That is Richardson.
Rob Staton made case after case for the Seahawks to do whatever it takes to draft Richardson:
I’ve watched every game he’s played for Florida, just as I’ve watched every game for each of the top quarterbacks in the 2023 draft. I’m not going to try and argue that Richardson doesn’t have room to grow or clear areas where he can improve…Plenty of the other big names have their own flaws and concerns that aren’t talked about as often…What he lacks in experience he makes up for with extreme physical brilliance — the kind that we’ve only seen with the likes of Josh Allen in recent history. That’s not to say it’s an apples for apples comparison. For example, Richardson is an even better runner.
Corbin Smith invented 4 trade scenarios for Seattle to trade up for Richardson:
Understandably doing their due diligence on each prospect, Florida's Anthony Richardson has been the player most connected to the Seahawks to this point, as Schneider met with his agent at his pro day in Gainesville on Thursday. Prior to the workout, he also met with Carroll and Schneider at the combine, telling Stephen Holder of ESPN that visit stood out amongst the rest.
Clearly enamored by the uber-athletic, cannon-armed quarterback, multiple reports coming from Vic Tafur of The Athletic and Tony Pauline of Pro Football Network surfaced on Thursday speculating on the franchise's intention to potentially trade up for Richardson.
And with each passing take that Seattle couldn’t afford to waste their opportunity to frivolously spend a top-5 pick “because it wasn’t theirs to begin with” (not an argument that makes any sense), the Seahawks became the most popular mock destination for Richardson:
But at what point do the people in that camp stop thinking in “best case scenarios” and start considering the most likely outcomes?
Not all fans bought the hype — just some of the loudest ones
Even if it felt like “everyone” was excited about Richardson as a possible target, I ran a poll in 2023 at Seaside Joe and the vote was split 50/50 on the question, “Would you be upset if the Seahawks picked Anthony Richardson?”
That’s just asking if you’d be upset. I wouldn’t necessarily been upset with Seattle if that’s what they did, but I would have been confused. I believe a lot more Seahawks fans than we know were hopeful that Schneider and Carroll would go in any other direction besides a project at quarterback.
Just because Josh Allen exists (and no matter what you want to make of the competition at Reedley Community College or Wyoming, Allen had full three seasons as a starter and four total before entering the draft) that doesn’t give the self-serving media carte blanche to now compare every uber-athletic college quarterback with no accuracy to him.
Not only did Richardson need to play, he needed to go back to college and if that meant transferring out of Florida and going to a program that would build the entire airplane out of him (like Auburn did for Cam Newton) then that’s what the transfer portal WAS MADE FOR.
But in the modern world of how the NFL Draft is used online as a stepping stone for “tomorrow’s Mel Kiper and Todd McShay”, being right is not actually the goal. Going VIRAL is the goal.
And you catch more flies with honey …
Why does it seem like “twitter’s favorite QB prospect” every year is always the “traits-y” one who they feel they need to build a defense for against the “meanies” who rationally bring up some concerns about his film, his mistakes, his lack of experience, or his inconsistency?
2021: Justin Fields
2022: Malik Willis
2023: Anthony Richardson
2024: J.J. McCarthy
2025: Jalen Milroe?
Not a very good track record…but at least Milroe was only the 92nd pick!
Twitter addicts know that tweeting about how a prospect “is amazing and is going to amaze you and just wait how much he amazes you in the NFL and no, no, no don’t look at that play or that play or that play! look at this highlight only!! don’t listen to the HATERS” will get shared a lot more often than if bring up the fact that a player couldn’t beat out Emory Jones as a sophomore at Florida…or that Justin Fields transferred because he lost a competition to Jake Fromm…or that Malik Willis never did anything more than improvise his good stats against Old Dominion and UMass.
The Internet has essentially become one massive snake oil salesman.
Without even knowing they’re doing it, thousands of people not working in tandem put forth an immeasurable effort to trick us into believing that if we buy what they’re selling, we’re going to get ALL OF THE GOOD and NONE OF THE BAD.
But this is the NFL Draft, which usually means that players are going to give roughly the same amount of “good” and “bad” in the pros as they did in college. And Richardson was really bad in college.
What they thought they wanted
“But didn’t the Seahawks intend to draft Richardson if he had just fallen past the Indianapolis Colts at 4?”
Although this rumor has been widely accepted as a fact, the notion that Pete and John were prepared to draft Richardson at 5 is actually twisting words around to fit the narrative that they wanted us to believe was real before the draft. Pete and John separately said after the draft that they definitely considered Richardson, just as they considered Bryce Young, C.J. Stroud, and Will Levis.
But ESPN’s Brady Henderson feels strongly that the other player that the Seahawks wanted to draft at 5, if not Devon Witherspoon, was Will Anderson:
It just does not make any sense that the Seahawks would have drafted Anthony Richardson with the fifth overall pick in the 2023 NFL Draft. Maybe at a different pick or maybe in a different year, but Carroll never drafts quarterbacks that early because he’s always focused on how to get better RIGHT NOW…and that would never be the reason to draft Richardson.
When looking back at all the quarterbacks who the Seahawks didn’t acquire since trading Russell Wilson, from rumors around Deshaun Watson to Colin Kaepernick to Willis and Richardson, it makes a few bad throws in OTAs feel like having the number one pick.
Seaside Joe 2285
And this is why I'm happy to pay for SSJ. At least there's someone out there willing to dig for truths and provide some original (or at least not main stream) perspective. Subverting the dominant paradigm can be difficult, but for us readers it's priceless - and very entertaining. Keep up the good work Kenneth.
Randy Mueller had Richardson as a Day 3 pick who would take five years to develop and who might never be good enough to start. He also suspected that Jim Irsay would force an unwilling Colts staff to draft Richardson at #4. (FWIW, RM had Bryce Young as a Day 2 pick and thought that some teams wouldn’t have Young on their board at all.)
When I look back on that draft…man, the Hawks were lucky to get Witherspoon. In retrospect, he should have been a top four choice with Schneider scrambling to trade the pick so that he didn’t have to draft Tyree Wilson.