Anthony Richardson's Trade Request Is Still Unresolved as the Colts Set Their 53

Anthony Richardson requested a trade from the Colts in February, and as Indianapolis sets its 53-man roster this weekend, that request remains unresolved. Richardson is still on the team, Daniel Jones is the starter, and the quarterback the Colts drafted fourth overall is competing for a backup job rather than a starting one.

Reporting through August has been consistent on the shape of the situation without producing a resolution. Teams have called on Richardson to varying degrees of interest, which is not the same as Indianapolis shopping him. The Colts have publicly maintained that they want to carry three quarterbacks who can play, and the assistant general manager has said as much on the record, framing Richardson's presence as a roster decision rather than a holding pattern.

Per multiple reports, Indianapolis also did not pick up his fifth-year option, which puts a clock on the relationship even if no trade happens. That combination, a player who wants out, a team that will not move him cheaply, and a contract that ends soon, is a standoff that typically breaks either at the trade deadline or at the end of the league year.

Why no deal has happened

The preseason quarterback trade market is narrower than it looks. A deal requires a second team with a genuine need, a credible offer, and enough runway for a quarterback to learn a new playbook before games count. In the last week of August, the third condition eliminates most buyers. A team acquiring a quarterback now is buying insurance, not a starter, and insurance does not command the return Indianapolis would want for a former fourth overall pick.

The other constraint is what Richardson actually is at this point: a quarterback with rare physical tools, an uneven starting résumé, and enough draft capital attached to his name that his current team is not going to accept a late-round pick to solve someone else's depth problem.

That leaves a stalemate that both sides can live with through September. The Colts get a third quarterback who has started NFL games. Richardson gets a season of practice reps and a market that reopens in the offseason.

Fantasy fallout

For redraft leagues, the practical takeaway is that Daniel Jones is Indianapolis' quarterback and there is no live competition for that job. That has already been priced in, and Jones has drawn a modest market bump this summer on reports that his recovery from an Achilles injury has progressed without limitations.

Jones is a streaming option rather than a weekly starter in one-quarterback leagues, with a supporting cast that improved through free agency and a rushing floor that keeps him relevant in superflex formats. The relevant risk is not Richardson taking the job. It is Jones' own durability, which is where a third quarterback on the roster becomes something worth tracking.

Richardson himself is a superflex and dynasty asset, not a redraft one. In superflex leagues he is worth a late roster spot precisely because the situations that would make him startable, a trade to a team with an opening or an injury in Indianapolis, are both live possibilities within a single season. In dynasty, he is a buy-low candidate for anyone who believes the tools translate with a second system.

The Verdexed model take

Verdexed's model does not project Richardson as an Indianapolis starter in any meaningful share of simulated seasons, which is the correct read of a depth chart that has been stable since spring. What the model does flag is the backup-quarterback replacement value, and it is unusually high here.

Indianapolis has invested in the offense around the quarterback position this offseason, including at receiver. That means the value of the Colts' quarterback job, whoever holds it, is higher than it was a year ago. A backup who inherits that job midseason inherits a supporting cast, which is exactly the scenario that turns a rostered backup into a startable fantasy quarterback.

That is the model's case for holding Richardson in deeper formats: not that he wins the job in camp, but that the job he would inherit is worth having.

Betting angle

The Colts' season win total and their division price both assume Jones takes the majority of the snaps. Any market that offers a quarterback-contingent price is worth checking against that assumption, because the gap between the Colts with Jones and the Colts with a replacement is wider than the market usually accounts for in a preseason number.

There is also a trade-market angle. If a starting quarterback elsewhere goes down in the first month, Richardson becomes the most obvious available name with starting experience, and Indianapolis' leverage improves considerably. That is a scenario worth having in mind rather than a bet to place today.

The superflex read

Superflex and two-quarterback leagues are where this situation has actual draft-day consequences. In those formats, the last few quarterback spots are filled with backups whose value is entirely contingent, and the ranking that matters is not talent but proximity to a starting job.

Richardson ranks well on that measure. He has real NFL starting experience already behind him, he is on a roster where the starter is coming off a serious injury, and he is attached to a trade market that could reopen the moment a quarterback goes down anywhere in the league. Most quarterbacks available at the end of superflex drafts have one of those three things going for them. Richardson has all three.

The counterweight is that he is one of the least accurate passers to hold a full-time job in recent seasons, and a fantasy quarterback whose value comes from rushing production carries injury risk that a pocket passer does not. He is a lottery ticket with a real chance of hitting and a real chance of never being startable.

What's next

The immediate marker is the 53-man roster itself. If the Colts carry three quarterbacks as they have said they intend to, the situation holds through September unchanged. If they carry two, something has moved.

After that, the next natural inflection point is the trade deadline, when a contender with a quarterback injury has a real reason to pay and Indianapolis has a real reason to sell rather than lose him for nothing. Until one of those things happens, Richardson is a Colt, Jones is the starter, and the fantasy implications are limited to the bench of superflex rosters.