When the Colts lost 23-19 to the Texans to end last season, Richardson was forced to wear a gray hoodie on the sidelines. He watched Gardner Minshew II struggle and Jonathan Taylor provide a spark. He saw a defense get knocked to its knees by CJ Stroud’s 75-yard touchdown to Nico Collins on Houston’s first play, and then limit the Texans to just 4.2 yards per play for the rest of the game.
And he, like the rest of the team, was very disappointed when Minshew’s pass slipped through the hands of running back Tyler Goodson on fourth down, because he knew that a conversion late in the fourth quarter would have given the Colts new opportunities and put them just over 10 yards away from a playoff-deciding touchdown.
A few days after that loss, Richardson was asked if he was depressed about not being on the field for that crucial game. His answer was both calm and confident.
“Not really,” Richardson said, “because I know my career is going to be long, I know these seasons are definitely going to be long and I know we’re going to be battling with CJ (Stroud) for a long time.”
“…I know our team and I know what we’re capable of. I knew we should have had that (playoff) spot, but they played and acted the way they should have and we didn’t. It hurt a little bit, but I’m not too worried about it because I know we have a lot to deal with in the future and we’re going to have those accomplishments.”
Sunday marks the second act in one of the best quarterback matchups in the NFL division. (Other matchups in the AFC South will also involve Trevor Lawrence of the Jaguars and possibly Will Levis of the Titans. This division is loaded with young, talented quarterbacks.) The Colts won the first meeting in Week 2 of the 2023 season, with Richardson scoring two early touchdowns before exiting with a concussion.
The Texans won the second meeting, but not without Richardson on the field.
Mixon, Diggs and Hunter were also unaffected, of course. The same goes for Texans wide receiver Tank Dell, who missed the Week 18 game due to injury. Houston’s roster has undoubtedly improved with the offseason changes.
But the Colts also feel like their roster is better, even if their offseason went unnoticed outside of Indianapolis. They feel like the continuity they bring into 2024 from a team that narrowly missed the playoffs in 2023 is a good thing. And it’s not like the Colts don’t anything in the offseason. They selected the first defensive player in the 2024 NFL Draft – and defensive end Laiatu Latu had an incredibly impressive training camp leading up to his NFL debut this weekend.
Most importantly, the Colts are convinced that their team as a whole is exactly where it needs to be in 2024, even if that wouldn’t have required many spectacular offseason transfers.
“(Houston’s) roster has definitely gotten better,” defensive tackle DeForest Buckner said. “But at the end of the day, you can talk about rosters and what rosters look like — I mean, I’ve been in this game for almost a decade and I’ve seen some great rosters. Super Bowl rosters. That doesn’t mean anything until you go out there and play. In 2022, everyone talked about our roster, that we had a full roster, this and that, and you saw that happen. At the end of the day, you’ve got to go out there every week and compete and play.”
“It’s not like we made a lot of decisions in the offseason that brought about big changes, but we got our guys back,” Taylor said. “That continuity, sometimes it’s not always the best talent, it’s the best team. And now when you have talent and a great team with continuity, you can do some special things.”
The Colts were on the verge of doing something special in 2023. They will try to do something special, and they will do it largely with the same group that shuffled home from Lucas Oil Stadium on a cold January night, disappointed by their close loss to the Texans.
And they will begin the offensive to achieve their goals with Richardson, who will return to play at center on Sunday afternoon, 11 months before the date of his season-ending injury.
