Indianapolis Colts Offseason Preview
They have everything except the quarterback. And a first-round pick. And a track record of building anything but the eighth-best team in the AFC.
This is the latest in an ongoing series of NFL offseason previews.
2025 Season in a Nutshell
The half-season run as the AFC’s best team. The Daniel Jones transfiguration. The Sauce Gardner trade. The Daniel Jones disintegration. The Philip Rivers legasequel. The complete late-season collapse.
The 2025 season proved that no franchise can dream up more ways of not quite making the playoffs than the Colts.
Coaching Situation
CHRIS BALLARD: Let’s blame injuries and tell the boss that we can turn things around quickly in 2026 if we just stay the course.
SHANE STEICHEN: Think she’ll buy it?
CHRIS BALLARD: Of course. She’s new! She doesn’t realize that’s the oldest dodge in the book!
CARLIE IRSAY-GORDON: You doofuses realize I can hear every word you’re saying, right?
Meanwhile, in a particularly lenient corner of heaven …
JIM IRSAY: Bob? Is that you? Jerry and I have been waiting …
BOB WEIR: I want my guitar back.
Quarterback Situation
Daniel Jones, a mediocre journeyman who enjoyed an early-season hot streak thanks to a strong supporting cast and weak competition, is an unrestricted free agent who had a long injury history before fracturing his fibula in November and tearing his Achilles in December.
Anthony Richardson, who possesses Josh Allen’s raw tools but Sideshow Bob’s gift for self-sabotage, doesn’t turn 24 until May and was still considered the Colts’ franchise quarterback this time last year.
One of these quarterbacks appears to be in the team’s long-term plans. It ain’t Richardson.
State of the Roster
It’s good! There’s reliable talent everywhere: the playmaker corps (Michael Pittman, Jonathan Taylor, Tyler Warren, etc.), the offensive line (Quenton Nelson, Bernhard Raimann, et al), the defensive front (Zaire Franklin, DeForest Buckner, Laiatu Latu) and the secondary (Sauce, Cam Bynum, Charvarius Ward).
Some of the established veterans are a little too established – past their primes and/or tenured faculty on a perennial underachiever – but this is a roster that went 8-2 and blew some teams out at the start of the 2025 season with a frisky retread at quarterback.
Cap and Draft Stuff
It’s bad! The Colts traded their first-round pick for Sauce. They won’t select until 47th overall.
The Colts possess $36 million in paper cap space. But, you know, no quarterback. Jones headlines an in-house free agent class that includes Alec Pierce, Braden Smith, Kwity Paye and other key starters. Ballard prefers to extend/renew in-house contracts, but he won’t be able to hold on to everybody.
One Thing the Colts Should Do
Keep Pierce, who has grown into one of the NFL’s top deep threats. Everything the Colts are trying to build is based on the the idea that their offense is so stacked just about anyone could operate it. Pierce is the guy who opens up everything for Pittman, Jonathan Taylor and others.
Pierce knows he’s about to get rich as hell. Tagging him will eat up a ton of operational budget for a team that needs a quarterback. Retaining him will be a test of Ballard’s keep-the-band-together capabilities.
In Summary
No one locks himself in his own garage quite like Ballard. Re-signing damaged-goods Jones is a bad option, but it may be the Colts’ best option. A roster that always looks like it was built to compete last year is beginning to splinter due to age and money without even a measly playoff berth to show for it.
The current Colts, with a Jones-esque journeyman at quarterback, could easily win 10-11 games if everything breaks right in 2026. But the current Colts are probably not going to get much better. And everything never breaks right for this organization.
