Yahoo Autos Colts QB Anthony Richardson, 20, will bring a support system of family to Indy
INDIANAPOLIS – His little brother walked into the room first. Get used to that. We’re going to see a lot of Anthony Richardson’s little brother. That’s how it was in Gainesville, Fla., and that’s how it will be here now that the Colts have made Richardson, the gentle giant of a quarterback from Florida, the face of their franchise.
Well, one face.
Don’t forget about Corey.
That’s Richardson’s young brother. Corey Carter is his name, he’s 13 years old, and he goes where Richardson goes. Around Gainesville they got used to seeing Richardson on his black bicycle, pedaling around campus, Corey sitting on the handlebars. With their mother working two and sometimes three jobs, Richardson spent a lot of time looking after Corey. Class, practice, you name it. Corey went where Anthony went.
On Friday, less than 24 hours after the Colts chose him fourth overall in the 2023 NFL Draft, Anthony went to the Colts complex on 56th Street. Corey went with him.
Corey was first into the room, as I said, the side door opening and this cute little kid walking into the room in a red jacket. After that it was person after person coming through that door, men and women, relatives and friends important to Richardson, far too important to be left back home while he gets all the spotlight. Last to enter was Richardson.
“They’ve been with me my whole life,” Richardson said after introducing his group of friends and family from Florida, nine people total. “They keep me grounded, help me remember who I am as a person, and why I’m doing it.”
Pause.
“I’m doing it for my family.”
You couldn't draw Anthony Richardson with a crayon
We have so much to learn about Anthony Richardson. Like, did you know he can do a backflip? Not off the diving board, silly. On land, just springing into the air and tumbling backward until his feet are landing.
It’s an impressive feat for anyone, but this isn’t just anyone. Richardson is 6-4 and 244 pounds. His body looks like something you’d draw with a crayon, if you were so artistically gifted and willing to draw shoulders out to here and put them above the most absurd collection of muscles you’ll ever see on an NFL quarterback.
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When people say we’ve never seen a quarterback like Anthony Richardson, that’s a literal statement. Cam Newton came close, but Richardson runs significantly faster – 40 yards in 4.43 seconds at the 2023 NFL Combine for Richardson, compared to 4.56 at the 2011 NFL Combine for Newton – and jumps nearly a half-foot higher (40½ inches for Richardson, 35 for Newton).
Richardson also throws the ball harder. Newton’s fastest pass at the 2011 combine was clocked at 56 mph. Richardson uncorked one last month at 60 mph, and if you remember video of an indoor Pro Day workout this spring, when an NFL prospect threw a deep pass to a receiver and had the ball batted down by the ceiling, that was Richardson at quarterback.
No, we’ve never seen anyone like this.
When it was the Colts’ turn on the clock Thursday night, with 10 full minutes to do something with the No. 4 pick, Colts GM Chris Ballard immediately called Richardson to welcome him to the franchise. Shortly after that he was submitting Richardson’s name for NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to announce to the world, and then Ballard was walking into the media room to discuss Richardson with local reporters. He told a story from August, when Colts executive Morocco Brown was in Gainesville to watch a quarterback who had made exactly one career start at Florida.
“I’m getting these text messages from Morocco,” Ballard’s telling reporters, then quotes one in particular:
You should see the show that I’m watching on this practice field right now.
Brown has seen football at its highest levels since 1994, when he was a freshman at North Carolina State, where he played with future Colts quarterback Philip Rivers. After that Brown tried out for the NFL, played in the CFL and worked more than 20 years for four organizations in the NFL. He’s seen a lot of football, Morocco Brown, but at the end of the day he’s a lot like you and me:
He’d never seen anyone like Anthony Richardson.
Or Corey, for that matter.
Anthony and Corey, two football big shots
Corey’s a track star, weighed down with medals after every meet, and he’s going to be the best football player in the family. That’s how Richardson talks about his brother. That’s what he wants to do for Corey, paying forward what an older relative – Uncle Tanka, Richardson called him in a heartfelt story for The Players' Tribune – had done for him as a child in Miami Gardens, when Richardson was playing catch in the street and wearing No. 2 in youth leagues.
That was Cam Newton’s number at Auburn.
So much has happened since then. Uncle Tanka died about eight years ago, not long after Richardson, Corey and their mom had moved to Gainesville. While she was working all those jobs, Richardson was taking what Uncle Tanka had taught him about playing quarterback and becoming a star at Eastside High. He graduated a semester early, reporting to Florida after signing with the Gators at a news conference in December 2019.
Take a look at the picture of Richardson at that news conference. His mother, LaShawnda Cleare, is up there at the podium with him, sitting to Richardson’s right. To her right is Corey, holding a football.
Some junior high school around Indianapolis is about to get a heck of a player.
“It feels good to know he’s looking up to me,” Richardson was saying Friday, breaking into a proud smile as he tossed a look over at Corey, beaming happily in the corner. “Doing this, knowing he’s looking up to me, I just have to keep pushing so when it’s his time, he can be better than me.”
Corey is a mini-Anthony, right down to the copper-tinted braids. They appeared together Thursday night at the NFL Draft, because that’s what they do, and were dressed almost identically. Both were in gray suits over a turtleneck – Corey’s was black, Anthony’s white – with silver chains around their neck.
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Both flew into Indianapolis on Friday on Colts owner Jim Irsay’s private jet. Apparently that’s no small plane, because it brought back nine people. The jet was gassed up to return to Florida later Friday night, where Richardson needs to pack his things before returning next week with most of his group in tow. They’re all moving to Indianapolis, not necessarily because Richardson needs the support, but because he wants it.
This is a good thing. Richardson talks like a man in his 30s, just an impressive human being who’s going to do great things in this community – whether he ever makes a Pro Bowl or not – but he’s still just 20, almost as young as humanly possible to be drafted by an NFL team, much less to be drafted as the face of the franchise. He will be surrounded by friends, by family, by a mom who prepared him for the moment by pretending to interview him on long car rides together, by Corey.
He won’t be wearing No. 2 anymore, though. He’ll wear No. 5, because his days of paying homage to anyone are over. Anthony Richardson is fully grown, not another Cam Newton, but the first of his kind. We’ve never seen a quarterback like this, but we’re about to see him a lot. And Corey. We’re about to see a lot of Corey, too.
Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar or at www.facebook.com/greggdoyelstar.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Colts: Anthony Richardson, little brother, Corey, are package deal
