INDIANAPOLIS – One start convinced Philip Rivers that Riley Leonard could have a decade or more in the NFL. The second-year Colts quarterback has worked feverishly in the four months since to prove the veteran quarterback right.
Even the morning of his wedding.
“I actually threw with (Rivers) the morning of my wedding at his house (in Fairhope, Ala.). Just wanted to sweat a little bit,” Leonard told reporters last month with a chuckle. “This is probably the most time I’ve had off since high school and COVID. There’s a lot of ways you can approach that, but I think I handled it in a good way.
“I was itching to get back up here.”
What lies in front of Leonard in the coming weeks is perhaps his best chance to put that offseason work to use – an opportunity to fight for the team’s backup role in a competition that got far more intriguing this week with the return of Anthony Richardson Sr. to the team’s facility.
With Colts’ starter Daniel Jones continuing to work his way back from a torn Achilles tendon he suffered Dec. 7 in a road matchup with the Jaguars, it’s been understood Indianapolis would need to find quarterback reps when the franchise’s offseason workout program moved into on-field drills this week.
The Colts and Jones have left the door open to a possible OTA return for the veteran quarterback, who began dropping back in private drills last month. The start of training camp in late-July is a much clearer goal to ready for Jones, who this offseason signed a new two-year deal to stay in Indianapolis to be the team’s Week 1 starter.
Leonard, who lived with Jones for several months after Indianapolis selected him in the sixth round of the 2025 draft, knows well the maniacal, regimented way in which the Colts’ starting quarterback has attacked every day of his rehab process. With Jones ahead of schedule, Leonard’s opportunity for elevated reps may be closing.
And reps, head coach Shane Steichen and general manager Chris Ballard have said, are precisely what the team’s young backup quarterback needs to take the next step. As of Monday, Richardson, the franchise’s embattled former fourth-overall pick from the 2023 draft, may stand in the way of that target.
Despite work behind the scenes the past two months, the Colts were unable to deal Richardson leading up to and during the draft. The former first-round pick stayed away from the team facility for the first two weeks of voluntary team activities, opting to workout and throw with his own team in Jacksonville. But Richardson returned Monday to the team’s facility as the Colts moved into Phase Two of their offseason program that includes solo and group on-field drills.
The franchise, which last Friday declined to pick up the fifth-year option on Richardson’s rookie deal, gains no cap space by simply cutting Richardson, who counts $10.8 million against the cap this season – including a $5.4 million fully-guaranteed base salary along with a near-identical figure on a prorated signing bonus.
Ballard told reporters at the NFL Owners’ Meetings in March there was “definitely a scenario” where Richardson remained a Colt through the completion of his contract and so, until further notice, the position of QB2 remains fully up for grabs – a wrinkle that a month ago seemed unlikely to add another layer of complexity to Leonard’s quest for growth entering his second year in the league.
With legitimate competition for those starter-level snaps over the next several weeks ahead of what could very well be a training camp battle for QB2 in August, Leonard’s growth trajectory has taken on an even greater level of importance for the second-year quarterback.
“You just wanna see daily improvement, and that’s what we’re focused on right now (with Leonard), just trying to get better every day,” Steichen said last month of his backup quarterback. “What Riley was able to do when he stepped in last year was impressive, and so we want to see continued growth with his understanding of the offense and his playmaking ability to get completions, take what’s there and not make bad plays worse.
“He’ll get a ton of reps this spring. People always think of training camp (as an opportunity for reps) compared to OTAs, but for a quarterback, you’re not getting touched anyways, so OTAs will be beneficial for him when we do 11-on-11 or 7-on-7 stuff.”
Leonard grew leaps and bounds in the week leading up to the season-finale, which he entered having been named the starter, meaning starter-level reps in the week’s three practices. His first throw in Houston was a 66-yard bomb to Alec Pierce for an early go-ahead score, and Leonard would lead Indianapolis to a 17-point first half against largely the Texans’ defensive starters.
He’d finish his first career start 21-for-34 passing for 270 yards and three total touchdowns to go with three turnovers – all of which Leonard deemed self-inflicted, which in a way, were a positive in his eyes.
“I definitely felt when I was out there that I can play. I felt like I was a bit in control of my destiny, and so I think the mistakes that I made were self-errors, lack of awareness or urgency or whatever it was,” Leonard said postgame in Houston. “I think I can play for a long time. Hopefully, I’ll be around for a long time, because I think this is the greatest job in the world, and I try not to take it for granted.”
Outside of on-field reps, Leonard says his pursuit of improvement will come this spring and summer in his ability to get a better grasp of the theoretical foundation of the Colts’ offense – something that can only come with time, extra solo work and an annoying level of questions asked of Jones and the team’s coaches.
“(I want to) better understand the ‘why’ of the offense. Like, I can understand why we call certain plays, but I don’t understand why right now and why against certain defenses and certain coverages. That’s what I want to understand a little bit more,” he said. “I want to hear some offensive line calls and say, ‘Okay, I understand what they’re doing up front,’ and then be able to help out with that.
“Our offense is very reliant on QB checks, and when Daniel is in the game and (the offense) is fit to him, they’re giving him a lot of checks because he’s really smart. I want to be able to experience that. When we played the Texans, they just wanted me to go out and play, but I don’t want there to be a difference in who’s behind center, as far as the mental side of it.”
Already, Leonard said he’s seeing dividends in just a couple weeks of being back at the team facility.
“I was able to throw (to the receivers) today – even just for 20 minutes, but that 20 minutes was a lot for me,” he said last month. “Before the Texans game, I’d maybe thrown Josh (Downs) seven passes in my entire life, and I threw eight to him today. The fact we’re able to do that twice a week is super big for me.”
Joel A. Erickson and Nathan Brown cover the Colts all season. Get more coverage on IndyStarTV and with the Colts Insider newsletter.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Anthony Richardson is back; what does that mean for Riley Leonard’s development
Reporting by Nathan Brown, Indianapolis Star / Indianapolis Star
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
