ESPN's Chris Mortensen lays out NFL plan for Anthony Richardson as a first-round pick

As the 2023 NFL Draft approaches, whether Florida quarterback Anthony Richardson will be a first-round pick seems far less of a question than how high a first-round pick he will be.

Speaking on a SportsCenter Special on the draft on Tuesday night, long-time NFL Draft analyst Chris Mortensen laid out a reasonably sensible plan for Richardson from someone in the NFL ranks.

But Mortensen himself is not a fan of Richardson being selected in the top five of this year’s NFL Draft.

“You know those emojis where the brain is exploding out of the head or whatever?” Mortensen said. “That’s what’s going on in my head right now, because the metrics of a guy starting one season just does not compute in this league.

“I’m rooting for Anthony Richardson. I hope this works for him.”

Here’s a sobering statistic when it comes to Richardson and the NFL Draft, even knowing he set multiple records at this year’s NFL Combine.

His 13 starts in college would be the fewest of any first-round quarterback in the last 20 years.

So there are a couple trains of thought on Richardson. The first is that he’ll need some real time to develop. The second is that his sheer athleticism and the ceiling if he can begin to tap into his potential are simply too good to pass up.

Thus so many varying projections for Richardson in the first round.

Mortensen outlined what he was told by NFL personnel on a reasonable way to make it all fit together with Richardson, even early in the first round.

“I did have a personnel man call me and tell me that he’s OK with Richardson going in the first round,” Mortensen explained. “Now he didn’t say the top five, but he used the old (Patrick) Mahomes logic and I said, ‘Don’t do that, because Mahomes started three years at Texas Tech.’ The reason Andy Reid could do that with Mahomes, sit him in that first year, he had Alex Smith and he had three years body of work at Texas Tech.

“But he said, ‘No. You assign your quarterback coach to Anthony Richardson for the entire season. He works with Anthony Richardson the whole time. And you get those training camp reps on a separate field, run two fields at once — Andy Reid did, that was in 2017, though, the CBA has changed a little bit — but that’s the way you do it.’ And he said he’s got to play at least eight games.”

In other words, you commit a ton of time and resources to getting first-round pick Anthony Richardson up to speed as fast as humanly possible.

Because with a 53.8% completion percentage in his lone season as a starter, there’s a lot to work on. Mortensen relented a bit on his critical take of Richardson going in the early stages of the draft when presented with that plan.

“Under those circumstances I can see him being a first-round pick,” Mortensen said. “I do not see him going No. 4 to the Colts, and if he does, I wish him the best. I’m not wishing against him.”