Richardson: ‘Lord knows what my ceiling is.’
https://www.indystar.com/story/sport...k/70051140007/
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This is a boy merging with a man here, showing off in front of hundreds of eyes paid highly to scout the difference between the two. He's a 20-year-old who rides to football practice with his younger brother on the handle-bars, who sometimes speaks of quarterbacking like a backflip he just launched into, an act of sheer courage he feels cosmetically wired to land.
And yet he lands enough of these acts because the legs he's operating on belong to those of a man. He measured and tested those limbs last month at the NFL Scouting Combine, checking in at 6-foot-4 and 244 pounds. He jumped higher than any quarterback in the history of the event at 40.5 inches. He leaped farther than all but one, too, at 10 feet 9 inches. And he sprinted 40 yards in 4.43 seconds, a time reserved for the pro defensive backs he'll throw at next season.
"I actually met him in the sixth or seventh grade. He was athletic then. He could jump out of the gym then," said Florida defensive tackle Gervon Dexter Sr., who also grew up in central Florida. "All of the stuff he did at the combine, it surprised a lot of people, but it didn't surprise me."
Richardson still attacks football with the enthusiasm of that seventh-grader, in part because he never had to leave him behind. He attended Eastside High School in Gainesville, where he dreamed of running into the Swamp with a Gator Chomp and leading a team with his radiant joy. The kids around him never caught up in height or weight, and each deep throw and stiff-arm of a Southeastern Conference defender made him feel like those childhood dreams were real.
That doesn't mean it was all perfect or even close. Kids crash sometimes, to. And behind those tree-trunk legs and linebacker torso are some warts, like a 54.7% career completion rate and just 24 touchdown passes and 13 starts at
"I'm a workhorse. I'm going to work to become the greatest," Richardson said.
Never in the passing league era has a college quarterback with Richardson’s mix of experience and production become a notable NFL quarterback. But never has one had the measurables he has and been given the same opportunity.
He is a wind-up toy. Ask him where he needs to get better and he can't pin it down.
He hasn't scratched that part of the surface yet.
"If you ask me, I'd say everything: footwork, accuracy, arm power, leadership, decision-making. I could go on and on," Richardson said.
Asked about his lack of production, he'll say, "I can't control everything. I do feel like I'm a great player."
Richardson is effervescent when asked about his strengths and evasive when pressed on his weaknesses. He's a 20-year-old getting ready to leave his hometown for the first time, a maturation process the NFL is trying to microwave with cameras, comparisons and hyperbole.
"The sun is shining," Florida guard O'Cyrus Torrence said. "If you're in a room with people who are sad, you'll see him smiling. He lifts up the morale of the room. You can see it in sparks out here on the field, but you really see it in the locker room."
Richardson thrives on joy, and doing things with a football others cannot brings him that. It's harder to dwell on the details. But those in his circle are trying.
At his pro day, he tried to walk back some of the hype he threw on himself at the combine, back when he spoke about playing like a cross between Cam Newton and Lamar Jackson and describing himself as legendary.
"I don't believe in hype," he said. "Hype can take you down the wrong tunnel, and I'm not going down the wrong tunnel."
But he's also not afraid of it.
"I wore No. 15 here at the University of Florida. A lot of people thought it was going be hard for me to try to mimic (Tim) Tebow, but I didn't want to mimic Tebow. I just wanted to be the best version of myself," Richardson said. "So if Carolina was to draft me, then I'm not going to try to be like Cam (Newton)."
This is Richardson shifting into business mode, trading that sweat-soaked white spandex T-Shirt for a suit that doesn't quite fit yet.
By now, all of his games, the throws on air, the highlights and the misses and the measurables are out in the open. What's left is six interviews with teams, and the Colts will be one of them. They have to wait and see what the Panthers and Texans do at quarterback first. Indianapolis had director of scouting Morocco Brown in attendance, a shift from area scout Mike Lacy, who handled C.J. Stroud's and Will Levis' pro day since those were within driving distance to Indianapolis.
A job interview invites something metaphysically different than a kid launching a football into a steel white beam, like Richardson did Friday because he saw Levis do it on TV and wanted to try it, too. His smile belied both the calm and the wonder.
Florida quarterback Anthony Richardson started just 13 games in college before becoming one of the top fascinations in this year's NFL Draft.
"Lord knows what my ceiling is and what it's going to be," he said.
That, in a nutshell, is the Richardson experience. Nobody knows where this ship is going to end up, just that it's about to take off.
But a kid from Gainesville can still smile from the launch pad. That's what he did in the moments after he heaved those 50-some passes into the sky. Teenagers and college students approached in small groups for photos with the latest wonderkid draft prospect, and Richardson smiled as the cameras clicked, the shutters capturing the beginning of a journey with not a care in the world about the end.
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