If you have watched even a small amount of football, you probably saw players with a golden “C” somewhere on their jerseys. This symbol represents that a team chose that player to be one of its team captains. In short, a team captain is a player who exhibits high leadership on and off the football field.

Per usual for the Colts names like Quentin Nelson, Shaquille Leonard, DeForest Buckner, Zaire Franklin, and Kenny Moore II earned the title of team captain, and Ryan Kelly, who has been nothing but a man of high character and leadership, was named a captain this year for the first time in his career.

The way that the captains are chosen are by the players. Head coach Shane Steichen stated in his press conference that he told the players to pick their top 7 guys and rookie QB Anthony Richardson was named among them. When asked about Richardson being named team captain as a rookie, Steichen stated, “”I think it’s big. It just shows what the team has thought about him… It speaks volumes to his character and the person he is”.

The 21-year old quarterback has been a young man with a lot of respect and trust from his teammates thus far. A lot of credit, though, needs to be given to Richardson’s upbringing and family. In his introductory press conference after being drafted by the Colts, Richardson stated that his family keeps him “grounded”.

“They’ve been with me my whole life helping me get to this point. Just making sure I have them in my corner, keeping me grounded, and letting me know who I am as a person and not just about ball and why I’m doing it… I do it for my family. I do it because I want to be great.”

We’ll see how Richardson fares in his first year as a starting quarterback, but one thing we can know for right now is that Richardson has earned the respect of the locker room, his teammates, his coaches, and the fans.