Anthony Richardson worked out at Florida’s Pro Day Thursday and looked impressive. While a lot of quarterbacks tend to look good at their Pro Day workouts, Richardson seemed to have caught the eye of Arthur Smith, Terry Fontenot, and the Atlanta Falcons enough to reportedly want to host the Florida quarterback on a top-30 visit at some point.
This morning Robb Tribble, filling in for Tiffany Blackmon, Beau Morgan, and Mike Johnson reacted to the news and gave their take on whether this top-30 visit the Falcons are going to bring Richardson in for is just due diligence by Atlanta or something more.
Johnson believes Richardson has a high ceiling, but also believes that Richardson is the type of quarterback that has a system built around him and not a quarterback that fits into a coach's system. Mike also thinks Smith is not the type of coach that would build a system around a quarterback.
“I don’t think Arthur Smith is the kind of guy that’s going to look at Anthony Richardson and say I'm going to build a system around you," said Johnson. "I don’t see that.
“I think that has a lot to do with why Lamar [Jackson] is not here, too. I don’t think Arthur Smith is a guy that’s going to say, 'you know what, I can design an entire system around this guy.' He’s not going to do that dude.”
Beau also believes that Richardson has a high ceiling, and thinks that he could be the type of quarterback that Smith wants.
“I think Anthony Richardson has every skillset to be a pocket guy,” but Beau doesn’t believe he’s that guy right now. "Problem is, he’s never done it consistently at Florida.”
Robb closed out the discussion by talking about Richardson up until this point may have possibly been relying on his athletic ability and raw talent too much, and now it may be coming back to bite him.
“It can stunt your development too when you’re so gifted athletically, you rely solely on that," said Tribble. "Then you don’t really dive into the nuance of actually playing the position. That comes with maturity, and apparently he seems like a very smart kid and maybe he can embrace that. But that’s still a high risk thing.”
Richardson you could argue has the highest ceiling, but it also seems like he has the lowest floor as well. And it feels like a team is going to take a chance on Richardson in the first round, and possibly even the top 10. So if the Falcons have any chance at getting him it would be with their eighth overall pick.
However, the eighth overall pick is so valuable you would have to play Richardson immediately if you draft him there, and after Smith, Fontenot, and even Arthur Blank have all put there confidence in Desmond Ridder and have stood behind Ridder being the starter this season, it goes without saying that drafting Richardson with the eighth pick would contradict everything that has been said and done this offseason when it comes to the quarterback position.
It is probably a safe bet to say the Falcons are just doing their due diligence on the Florida quarterback, and you shouldn’t expect to hear Richardson’s name called when the Falcons finally reveal who their eighth overall pick is.