NFL offseason power rankings: No. 21 Indianapolis Colts were the talk of the NFL before a hard fall
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The Indianapolis Colts finishing 8-9 last season wasn't a big surprise, based on preseason expectations. How the Colts got there was beyond strange. Historic, even.
The Colts were 8-2 and led the AFC South by 2.5 games. Their odds to make the playoffs reached 98.2% according to DVOA. The offense's efficiency numbers, behind great starts from quarterback Daniel Jones and running back Jonathan Taylor, had rarely been seen before. They started getting buzz as a potential Super Bowl dark horse. When they traded two first-round picks to the Jets for cornerback Sauce Gardner, it was understandable because they looked like a contender.
Even as the Colts were off to a blazing hot start, they said the right things.
"As a team, you can't get satisfied," tight end Mo Alie-Cox said, via the team's site. "We know things like this league can change in a heartbeat."
That turned out to be beyond prophetic.
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The Colts started losing close games. Jones tried playing through a fractured fibula, then tore an Achilles and Indianapolis' season really spun out of control. Philip Rivers coming back at age 44 after four seasons in retirement was a great story but it didn't result in any wins. The Colts, who were 7-1 at one point, finished on an 0-7 streak.
They were eliminated from the playoff race before they even kicked off in Week 18. Indianapolis was the sixth team since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970 to miss the playoffs after starting 8-2, according to Josh Dubow of the Associated Press. They were the first team ever to start 8-2 or better and finish under .500, which wasn't even possible before the 17-game schedule, but still sums up how complete the collapse was.
Any losing streak like that will sting for a while, but in Indianapolis' case it was even rougher because they looked so good early in the season. It wasn't a fluky run. Through seven games the offense was scoring more points per drive than any other team this century, including the 2007 Patriots, according to Anthony Dabbundo of The Ringer. They were blowing out teams.
The Colts' site pointed out that there were only four teams with four or more wins by 21 or more points last season: the 14-3 Seahawks, 13-4 Jaguars, 12-5 Rams … and the 8-9 Colts. The Colts were the first team since the 2019 Cowboys to miss the playoffs with four wins by at least 21 points, the team's site said. Despite a seven-game losing streak they finished with a +54 point differential, which was better than five playoff teams (Steelers, Chargers, Bears, Packers, Panthers) and the same as the Eagles.
The Colts were arguably the NFL's best team in the first half of the season. The magic ride crashed hard.
That first half gives the Colts hope for this season, but even that is complicated. Jones is confident he'll be ready for Week 1 after his Achilles injury, but that doesn't mean he'll be the same player. It's a tough injury. The Colts hedged with Jones' contract when he was a free agent this offseason. He signed for $88 million over two years, which is a lot of money but the length of the deal accounts for some concern. There also has to be some worry that Jones, who had been cut by a bad Giants franchise in November of 2024, just caught a heater for a half of a season. Or that a little bit of regression will be compounded by whatever he'll lose physically from the Achilles injury.
It's hard to figure out what's next for the Colts. It's possible that Jones is healthy and the offense resumes its startling pace from the first half of last season. Receiver Alec Pierce is back, after signing a huge $114 million deal to stay as a free agent, though the team traded Michael Pittman Jr. to shed salary. Even Pierce is a bit in flux due to ankle surgery he had in March that could put his start of the regular season in some doubt. The defense wasn't great last season but added some veterans up front and was good enough when the team won eight of its first 10 games. It will also benefit from having Gardner for a full season.
Indianapolis head coach Shane Steichen hasn't made the playoffs in any of his three seasons, but the Colts have been close all three times. They've finished either 9-8 or 8-9 in each of the past three seasons. Another season coming up short at the end probably wouldn't be good for Steichen or general manager Chris Ballard, even if it doesn't include an extreme downfall like last season. And after last season's wild split between the first half of the season and the second, anything seems possible.
Offseason grade
The Colts weren't letting Alec Pierce walk in free agency. A four-year, $114 million deal with $84 million guaranteed was stunning, but if the Colts didn't pay it another team probably would have. It probably cost the team Michael Pittman Jr., who was traded to the Steelers. All the Colts got back was a late-round pick swap, but they were able to shed Pittman's salary. The Colts also felt compelled to bring back Daniel Jones after his fantastic half season before an Achilles injury, and a two-year, $88 million deal made sense for both sides.
The Colts clearly wanted to upgrade the defensive front seven in free agency. They signed linemen Michael Clemons, Arden Key, Derrick Nnadi and Jerry Tillery as well as linebacker Akeem Davis-Gaither, though edge defender Kwity Paye signed with Las Vegas. Offensive tackle Braden Smith also left, to Houston. The draft didn't include a first-round pick due to the Sauce Gardner trade, but the defense got more help with second-round pick C.J. Allen at linebacker and safety A.J. Haulcy in the third. Being able to retain Pierce and Jones was solid, albeit expensive, but it's hard to say the roster looks significantly upgraded.
Grade: C
Quarterback report
The Colts took a huge swing on Anthony Richardson Sr. with the fourth pick of the 2023 NFL Draft, and it has gone as poorly as possible. Richardson has had extreme accuracy issues and injury woes through his 15 career starts, barely played last season after he failed to beat out Daniel Jones and then suffered a weird orbital bone fracture, and this offseason he requested a trade. The Colts couldn't find a partner through the spring to make it happen.
Regardless of what happens with Richardson, backup quarterback is a concern with Jones coming off a major injury. Richardson has not shown he's a reliable option, and Riley Leonard is a sixth-round pick who got one start before the Colts decided 44-year-old Philip Rivers off his couch was a better idea. If Jones returns from injury and stays healthy all season, the Colts should expect at least competent quarterback play. And, like last season, if Jones misses time it could get ugly.
Odds breakdown
From Yahoo's Ben Fawkes: "It was a tale of two seasons for the Colts — a team that started 8-2 and lost seven straight to end the season on the heels of starting QB Daniel Jones tearing his Achilles. Jones is supposedly coming back Week 1, but which Colts team will we see this year? Indianapolis has a win total of 7.5 and is an underdog (+140) to make the playoffs. Even without a difficult schedule, the Colts are only favored in six games. And without a first-round pick due to the Sauce Gardner trade, Indy wasn't able to upgrade talent in other areas this offseason. With too many other solid teams in the AFC, I'd bet on the Colts to miss the postseason at -165 odds."
Yahoo's fantasy take
From Yahoo's Scott Pianowski: "Bears TE Colston Loveland is getting a ton of fantasy buzz this summer and it's justified. But if you can't get Loveland at his expectant price, maybe you can pivot to Tyler Warren. Indy's rookie ranked third in targets, sixth in receptions and fifth in yards among tight ends last year, and that was despite QB Daniel Jones missing the final four games. Warren's case isn't that different from Loveland's, but he's going a full round later in early Yahoo drafts."
Stat to remember
While Daniel Jones' injuries were the story of the Colts' change in fortunes last season, Jonathan Taylor's slump also coincided with the team's drop. Taylor was obviously affected by the Colts' quarterback woes, but he went from an MVP candidate to barely replacement level numbers:
First 10 games: 1,139 rushing yards, 15 rush TDs, 6 yards per attempt, 260 receiving yards, 2 receiving TDs
Final seven games: 446 rushing yards, 3 rush TDs, 3.3 yards per attempt, 118 receiving yards, 0 receiving TDs
While there were reasons for the dip that were out of Taylor's control, that's a startling fall across the board. He had five 100-yard games in the first 10 games, and didn't have more than 87 rushing yards in a game after that. Taylor has played at an All-Pro level before and is just 27 years old, so he should be able to bounce all the way back. But we'll have to watch it closely, because the team's success is closely related to how well Taylor is doing on the ground.
Burning question: Will Colts see a return on the Sauce Gardner trade?
The Sauce Gardner trade didn't work out right away for the Colts. They fell apart late in the season and missed the playoffs while Gardner played only four games (he was limited to just two snaps in one of those games) due to a calf injury. But the Colts weren't getting him as a short-term rental. They traded two first-round picks to the Jets for Gardner because the star cornerback will be just 26 years old this season and has multiple prime seasons ahead.
Gardner is unquestionably talented, and assuming he stays healthy he'll impact the Colts defense. Coordinator Lou Anarumo can dial up more aggressive pressures knowing Gardner can do his job against whichever receiver he is matched up against. It could turn out that the Colts lose the trade because it was so expensive — the Jets' first pick from the Colts was tight end Kenyon Sadiq, with another to come in 2027 — but the Colts will benefit from having one of the NFL's best cornerbacks for this season and a few others to come.
Best-case scenario
It's not crazy to say the Colts can be a Super Bowl contender, because that's what they were at the beginning of November last year. It's hard to believe the Colts can recapture the offensive hot streak from last season, when they were comparable to teams like the 2007 Patriots, but Daniel Jones was clearly clicking with Shane Steichen's scheme.
Jonathan Taylor, Alec Pierce and second-year tight end Tyler Warren provide a nice nucleus around Jones. And that 8-2 start last season happened mostly without cornerback Sauce Gardner, an elite defender who will be just 26 years old this season. It's fine to be overly optimistic about the Colts, predict a division title and possibly a playoff run, because they were at that level less than a year ago.
Nightmare scenario
It's easy to blame the Colts' fade on Daniel Jones' Achilles injury. However, they were fading before that. The Colts had lost three of their previous four games, with the only win coming in overtime against the mediocre Atlanta Falcons, and trailed 14-7 in the first quarter at Jacksonville when Jones suffered a season-ending injury. In Jones' first eight games he had a 109.5 passer rating, 13 touchdowns and three interceptions with an adjusted yards per attempt of 9.
In his final five games it was an 84.2 rating, six touchdowns with five interceptions and the adjusted yards per attempt was 6.6. He was playing through a fractured fibula and maybe it's unfair to count the slump against him due to that. But Jones had an 84.3 passer rating over six Giants seasons. It's hard to believe that the quarterback we saw for two months is his actual level going forward, especially if that Achilles injury takes some of his mobility away.
And it's also hard to buy that's the Colts' new level. The Colts being mediocre again, with their first-round pick in a strong 2027 NFL Draft already sent off to the Jets in the Sauce Gardner trade, would be a big disappointment after the excitement from the first half of last season. And it would bring an offseason of speculation about Shane Steichen and Chris Ballard.
The crystal ball says
This ranking could look silly early this season. The Colts weren't just getting lucky and winning close games against bad teams; they looked great. And while that run might be impossible to recreate this season, it wasn't an illusion either. But overall, there are too many questions to predict a double-digit win season, starting with how Daniel Jones looks coming off a serious injury.
Overall, it just seems like a slightly below average Colts team, and the division is getting better around them. Let's predict a Colts record below .500, which would mean a fourth straight season of Shane Steichen missing the playoffs and many tough offseason decisions in Indianapolis.
