Three weeks into training camp, the Daniel Jones vs. Anthony Richardson Sr. race is too close to call.
It's not because Jones and Richardson have consistently struggled, leading to no clear leader emerging. The opposite has, for the most part, happened: Both quarterbacks have had more good days than bad days. And days where one quarterback has clearly been better than the other have been rare, if they've happened at all.
"We expected competition to bring out the best in both of them, and that's what we're seeing," offensive coordinator Jim Bob Cooter said. "Hey, it hasn't been perfect here, there, whatever. Right? We get our pluses and our minuses, but the guys each run a different group different periods of the day and shoot, they're competing to score as many points as they can with that group, or move the ball as much as they can, or whatever the success is in that drill. I think it is raising the level of each of them. So, it's good to see. It's good for our offense. The better they're playing, the better the guys around them are playing. They're feeding off each other. That's been really good to see."
An important marker will be what Richardson does on Saturday against the Green Bay Packers, seeing as the [Colts thought Jones did some good things](https://www.colts.com/news/5-colts-things-anthony-richardson-takes-responsibility-for-injury-causing-sack-inside-daniel-jones-31-snaps-tyler-warren-shines-in-preseason-opener-vs-ravens) over his 31 snaps against the Baltimore Ravens last week. Jones will start against Green Bay and play a couple of series, per head coach Shane Steichen, with Richardson finishing the first half after Jones exits.
We'll see after Saturday's game if Jones and Richardson have a roughly equal total of preseason game snaps. The Colts have kept things as even as possible in training camp practices, too. So a question that looms after this weekend: Will the Colts name a starting quarterback before their final preseason game against the Cincinnati Bengals on Aug. 23?
"We'll see," Steichen said. "We'll see how it plays out."
Steichen has consistently said there's no timetable on when the Colts will name a starting quarterback for their Sept. 7 season opener against the Miami Dolphins at Lucas Oil Stadium. The process will play out and, at some point, Jones or Richardson will learn they're QB1 to begin the 2025 season.
The Colts' thoughtful and intentional process, though, has produced a legitimately competitive quarterback competition to this point. And that's not an easy thing to pull off.