Colts QB Anthony Richardson retired in the fourth of eight career NFL games

Speaking of Minkah Fitzpatrick.

It was Fitzpatrick, the Steelers’ safety-killer, who later delivered a dirty personal foul shot to Colts receiver Adonai Mitchell that knocked Richardson out of the game the first time around and finished him off a few minutes later. The first strike was clean, if brutal, a shot to the hip from Richardson that caused him to grimace and drop the football because the pain was just too much, even though Bortolini ran across the field – Richardson had fought for a 16-yard gain before the Fitzpatrick score – to recover the fumble.

Fitzpatrick’s second hit was brutal and not clean. This one came three snaps after the first score, when Richardson went to the sideline for two plays and then returned. Sure enough, on his first play, the Colts called a zone read and Richardson elected to keep the ball. He faked the handoff to Taylor, broke off the left edge and felt something in his hip. He was about to go down – giving himself up, as they call it – and had slipped to one knee when Fitzpatrick hit him with a helmet-to-helmet blow.

Afterward, referee Land Clark told a pool reporter that Fitzpatrick’s hit was “accidental” and “was not strong enough to warrant a flag.”

The quarterback slips and gets hit anyway. In your head. On the defender’s helmet. What would it take to “justify a flag”? A trip to the intensive care unit?