Anthony Richardson is battling with Gardner Minshew for the starting quarterback spot with the Indianapolis Colts. On Friday, it was the rookie who received all of the first-team snaps on offense with Richardson producing some highlight moments.

One of those moments came on a 60-yard touchdown pass to Alec Pierce. After rolling to his left, Richardson stopped and delivered a dime across his body that Pierce hauled in over the top for a score.

Those are the kind of plays that head coach Shane Steichen said the offense is looking for when things break down. Steichen said he was pleased of Richardson’s scrambling when nothing was immediately open to go make a play.

“The biggest thing is, if nothing’s open, we just don’t want to stand there and stand back there, right,” Steichen said per the team’s official website. “… They matched it up pretty good, and it was like oh, let’s scramble and create those plays because that’s what it’s going to be like in the game.”

The practice was not entirely clean from mistakes with Steichen noting there was one play when Richarson unnecessarily rushed a throw. On that play, the offensive line effectively picked up a blitz while Richardson stepped up to throw too quickly.

Overall, Steichen liked what he saw on Friday and is glad to see Richardson not take a step back after stacking days in the spring.

“I thought he did a really nice job (today),” Steichen said. “The thing we were looking for — obviously he was stacking the days in spring and then you get that time off in the summertime, we didn’t want him to take a step back. And I don’t think he has done that at all. He’s continuing to improve and grow and we gotta keep doing that.”

As the No. 4 overall pick in the draft, Richardson has a great shot at early playing time if he can continue to impress in training camp. However, the team is unlikely to rush anything if he struggles at times or during the preseason.