Cut By Raiders, It’s Time To Stick A Fork in Trent Richardson’s Career
Drafted out of Alabama No. 3 overall by the Cleveland Browns in 2012, running back Trent Richardson was expected to have an immediate impact in the NFL. Selected behind quarterbacks Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin III, the same two players who finished ahead of him in Heisman voting, Richardson’s learning curve should have been substantially less steep at his position.
Although he showed promise his first year as a Brown, with 12 touchdowns and a combined rushing/receiving total over 1,300 yards, Richardson fell victim to the Cleveland coaching carousel the following year, when Rob Chudzinkski traded him to the Indianapolis Colts just two games into his sophomore season.
At the time, the deal looked like a classic win-win. The Browns got a first-round pick for a back that, while effective, didn’t quite live up to the hype, and the Colts, now suddenly competitive again with Luck behind center, supposedly received a player that would make their anemic rushing attack the least embarrassing it’d been since losing Edgerrin James after the 2005 season.
Supposedly being the operative word for Indianapolis, as the Richardson experiment proved to be an abject disaster. In two profoundly disappointing years with the Colts, Richardson proved to be ineffective at best and downright detrimental at worst. Despite paying a very steep price for his services, in March the decision was made to release Richardson and eat the $3.184 million remaining on his contract.
Days later the perennially hapless Oakland Raiders, who have averaged 4.6 wins per season over the last 12 years, inked Richardson to a one-year, $1.925 million deal, $600,000 of which was guaranteed. “Hopefully, this is my last stop, and I’m going to do whatever I can to make this my last stop. … Until I’m ready to walk away from the game, I don’t want to leave here,†he said not long after being signed.
It didn’t work out for Richardson, who was upstaged by 4th round draft picks (in 2011) Roy Helu and Taiwan Jones, 6th round draft pick (in 2013) Latavius Murray, and undrafted free agent (in 2015) Michael Dyer. On Monday it was reported he had been handed his walking papers from Oakland. Another all-time low in a career filled with nothing but.
If Richardson can’t cut it on two of the worst teams in the league, or find a way to make himself even the slightest bit useful with a standout stud like Andrew Luck leading the offense, it’s hard to imagine there’s a place for him in this league. It’s time he and everyone else take a moment to read the writing on the wall.
