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Anthony Richardson got fewer starts than Bryce Young before he was sent to the bench.
The Indianapolis Colts benched their second-year quarterback this week after his 10th career start, including six this season.
The Colts (4-4) are turning to 39-year-old Joe Flacco because coach Shane Steichen believes the veteran gives the team “the best chance to win right now.”
He’s not wrong.
Flacco, a Super Bowl MVP with the Ravens more than a decade ago, is 2-1 in three appearances with the Colts. He was 4-1 with Cleveland last year, helping the Browns reach the playoffs.
The 22-year-old Richardson threw just 393 passes in college at Florida before the Colts selected him with the fourth pick overall in last year’s NFL draft. Richardson has raw talent but still needs time to develop. He’s completed only 50.2% of his passes with more interceptions (eight) than touchdowns (seven).
He became the fourth quarterback benched this season, joining Young, Gardner Minshew and Justin Fields.
Young was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2023 NFL draft. C.J. Stroud, who was selected second by Houston, is the only member of last year’s quarterback class who is thriving. Will Levis, the 33rd pick, is 4-10 in his 14 starts for Tennessee and has missed the past two games with a shoulder injury.
Here are the teams who’ve made quarterback changes and those who might:
PANTHERS: Young was benched just two starts into this season by first-year coach Dave Canales. He was 2-14 in 2023 and has struggled mightily to live up to expectations after winning the Heisman Trophy at Alabama.
Young returned to Carolina’s starting lineup last week because of an injury to Andy Dalton and will remain the starter. The Panthers are 1-7 and need to find out if Young has a future.
STEELERS: Fields was playing well when Steelers coach Mike Tomlin switched to Russell Wilson. He helped Pittsburgh go 4-2 but Tomlin wanted to see if Wilson could take the offense to another level. He has. Wilson has posted a 111.9 passer rating while leading the Steelers to two wins. If he falters at any point, Fields will be ready to go should Tomlin decide to make another switch.
RAIDERS: Minshew beat out Aidan O’Connell for the starting job in training camp but was benched after three starts. He returned when O’Connell broke his thumb. The Raiders 2-6) are 2-4 with Minshew and will likely go back to O’Connell when he’s healthy.
TITANS: Levis is expected to regain the starting job once he’s cleared to play. Backup Mason Rudolph is 0-2 and the Titans (1-6) are headed nowhere so they need to figure what they have in Levis.
GIANTS: Daniel Jones hasn’t thrown a touchdown pass in the last three games and has struggled after a solid four-game stretch from Week 2-5. The Giants (2-6) are competing for a top 5 pick in the draft that would help them land a potential franchise QB. Backup Drew Lock isn’t the long-term answer but New York could make a switch eventually because Jones has a $23 million injury guarantee into 2025.
BROWNS: An injury to Deshaun Watson forced the Browns to start Jameis Winston, a move that should’ve been made earlier in the season. Coach Kevin Stefanski stuck with Watson most likely because the team traded a slew of picks for him and gave him an unprecedented fully guaranteed $230 million, five-year deal in 2022. The franchise has a difficult decision to make when Watson returns from an Achilles injury next year. Watson is owed $46 million for each of the next two seasons but he’s been a bust.
SAINTS: Derek Carr missed three games and the Saints (2-6) lost all of them with rookie Spencer Rattler. Carr is expected to return this week and New Orleans is making a switch to Jake Haener as the backup. If the team keeps losing, it’s possible Rattler could replace Carr to give the coaching staff an opportunity to evaluate him for the future.
PATRIOTS: Rookie Drake Maye, the No. 3 overall pick, got his chance to start in Week 6, replacing veteran Jacoby Brissett. Maye suffered a concussion last week and Brissett came in and led New England to an upset won over the Jets. Once Maye is ready, he’ll play. The Patriots (2-6) need him to be their franchise quarterback.
JETS: Aaron Rodgers isn’t getting benched. The four-time NFL MVP finally showed what he can do for the Jets in the second half of New York’s 21-10 win over Houston. But if the Jets (3-6) can’t stack wins and climb back into the playoff race, there’s no reason for Rodgers to keep playing and risk injury if he’s planning to play again in 2025.
AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl
Indianapolis Colts quarterback Joe Flacco (15) runs off the field following an NFL football game against the Tennessee Titans, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
Indianapolis Colts quarterback Anthony Richardson walks off the field after an NFL football game against the Houston Texans, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024, in Houston. The Texans won 23-20. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)
WASHINGTON (AP) — A day after the audacious U.S. military operation in Venezuela, President Donald Trump on Sunday renewed his calls for an American takeover of the Danish territory of Greenland for the sake of U.S. security interests, while his top diplomat declared the communist government in Cuba is “in a lot of trouble.”
The comments from Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio after the ouster of Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro underscore that the U.S. administration is serious about taking a more expansive role in the Western Hemisphere.
With thinly veiled threats, Trump is rattling hemispheric friends and foes alike, spurring a pointed question around the globe: Who's next?
“It’s so strategic right now. Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place," Trump told reporters as he flew back to Washington from his home in Florida. "We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it.”
Asked during an interview with The Atlantic earlier on Sunday what the U.S.-military action in Venezuela could portend for Greenland, Trump replied: “They are going to have to view it themselves. I really don’t know.”
Trump, in his administration's National Security Strategy published last month, laid out restoring “American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere” as a central guidepost for his second go-around in the White House.
Trump has also pointed to the 19th century Monroe Doctrine, which rejects European colonialism, as well as the Roosevelt Corollary — a justification invoked by the U.S. in supporting Panama’s secession from Colombia, which helped secure the Panama Canal Zone for the U.S. — as he's made his case for an assertive approach to American neighbors and beyond.
Trump has even quipped that some now refer to the fifth U.S. president's foundational document as the “Don-roe Doctrine.”
Saturday's dead-of-night operation by U.S. forces in Caracas and Trump’s comments on Sunday heightened concerns in Denmark, which has jurisdiction over the vast mineral-rich island of Greenland.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in a statement that Trump has "no right to annex" the territory. She also reminded Trump that Denmark already provides the United States, a fellow member of NATO, broad access to Greenland through existing security agreements.
“I would therefore strongly urge the U.S. to stop threatening a historically close ally and another country and people who have made it very clear that they are not for sale,” Frederiksen said.
Denmark on Sunday also signed onto a European Union statement underscoring that “the right of the Venezuelan people to determine their future must be respected” as Trump has vowed to “run” Venezuela and pressed the acting president, Delcy Rodriguez, to get in line.
Trump on Sunday mocked Denmark’s efforts at boosting Greenland’s national security posture, saying the Danes have added “one more dog sled” to the Arctic territory’s arsenal.
Greenlanders and Danes were further rankled by a social media post following the raid by a former Trump administration official turned podcaster, Katie Miller. The post shows an illustrated map of Greenland in the colors of the Stars and Stripes accompanied by the caption: “SOON."
“And yes, we expect full respect for the territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark,” Amb. Jesper Møller Sørensen, Denmark's chief envoy to Washington, said in a post responding to Miller, who is married to Trump's influential deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller.
During his presidential transition and in the early months of his return to the White House, Trump repeatedly called for U.S. jurisdiction over Greenland, and has pointedly not ruled out military force to take control of the mineral-rich, strategically located Arctic island that belongs to an ally.
The issue had largely drifted out of the headlines in recent months. Then Trump put the spotlight back on Greenland less than two weeks ago when he said he would appoint Republican Gov. Jeff Landry as his special envoy to Greenland.
The Louisiana governor said in his volunteer position he would help Trump “make Greenland a part of the U.S.”
Meanwhile, concern simmered in Cuba, one of Venezuela’s most important allies and trading partners, as Rubio issued a new stern warning to the Cuban government. U.S.-Cuba relations have been hostile since the 1959 Cuban revolution.
Rubio, in an appearance on NBC's “Meet the Press,” said Cuban officials were with Maduro in Venezuela ahead of his capture.
“It was Cubans that guarded Maduro,” Rubio said. “He was not guarded by Venezuelan bodyguards. He had Cuban bodyguards.” The secretary of state added that Cuban bodyguards were also in charge of “internal intelligence” in Maduro’s government, including “who spies on who inside, to make sure there are no traitors.”
Trump said that “a lot” of Cuban guards tasked with protecting Maduro were killed in the operation. The Cuban government said in a statement read on state television on Sunday evening that 32 officers were killed in the U.S. military operation.
Trump also said that the Cuban economy, battered by years of a U.S. embargo, is in tatters and will slide further now with the ouster of Maduro, who provided the Caribbean island subsidized oil.
“It's going down,” Trump said of Cuba. “It's going down for the count.”
Cuban authorities called a rally in support of Venezuela’s government and railed against the U.S. military operation, writing in a statement: “All the nations of the region must remain alert, because the threat hangs over all of us.”
Rubio, a former Florida senator and son of Cuban immigrants, has long maintained Cuba is a dictatorship repressing its people.
“This is the Western Hemisphere. This is where we live — and we’re not going to allow the Western Hemisphere to be a base of operation for adversaries, competitors, and rivals of the United States," Rubio said.
Cubans like 55-year-old biochemical laboratory worker Bárbara Rodríguez were following developments in Venezuela. She said she worried about what she described as an “aggression against a sovereign state.”
“It can happen in any country, it can happen right here. We have always been in the crosshairs,” Rodríguez said.
AP writers Andrea Rodriguez in Havana, Cuba, and Darlene Superville traveling aboard Air Force One contributed reporting.
In this photo released by the White House, President Donald Trump monitors U.S. military operations in Venezuela, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026. (Molly Riley/The White House via AP)
