1. The Colts were eliminated from the playoffs even before losing their sixth consecutive game.
At the conclusion of Week 10, the AFC South standings looked like this:
- Colts (8-2)
- Jaguars (5-4)
- Texans (4-5)
- Titans (1-8)
Now, with Week 17 in the books, the AFC South looks like this:
- Jaguars (12-4; 7-0 since)
- Texans (11-5; 7-0 since)
- Colts (8-8; 0-6 since)
- Titans (3-13; 2-5 since)
The Colts' six-game losing streak being coupled with the Jaguars and Texans quite literally not losing has resulted in the sort of standings-generated whiplash you don't often witness in the NFL. But it's how the Colts, who were in firm control of the AFC South in Week 10, wound up eliminated from the playoffs before even kicking off in Week 17.
"I don't think anybody could really predicted it," linebacker Zaire Franklin said, "but this is our reality."
Since 1990, there have now been three teams to start 8-2 and miss the playoffs: The 2025 Colts, the 1995 Oakland Raiders and the 1993 Miami Dolphins. Like this year's Colts, none of those teams had the same player start every regular season game at quarterback.
2. The first thought starts with Daniel Jones' injuries.
So that brings us here: The Colts' 0-6 record since their bye week coincided with their starting quarterback playing through a broken fibula, and then sustaining a torn Achilles', in the span of a month.
"We all know that the competitor and the warrior he is, playing with a broken fibula for the past couple of weeks, fighting through that," defensive tackle DeForest Buckner said a few weeks ago. "I mean, that's a leader if I've ever seen one."
We'll never know if the Colts would've won some of these games with a healthy Daniel Jones – or even with a somewhat-limited Jones, who cruelly was moving better than he had in weeks just before tearing his Achilles' in Week 14 against the Jaguars. But Jones was (and is) held in extremely high regard in the Colts' locker room, not just for the mind meld he and head coach Shane Steichen operated with but for the work ethic, toughness and leadership he displayed on a daily basis.
Also, the player the Colts expected to be their backup – Anthony Richardson Sr., with whom the Colts have an 8-7 record when he starts – has been on injured reserve since a freak accident during pregame warmups prior to Week 6 that left him with an eye injury.
And while Philip Rivers played admirably after becoming one of the most remarkable storylines of the NFL season, it wasn't enough.
3. The next thought is about close games.
Three of those six consecutive losses easily could've gone the other way – if the Colts get one more first down in the fourth quarter against the Kansas City Chiefs, or if one calamitous moment goes in the Colts' favor against the Texans, or if the Colts get a stop after taking the lead against the Seattle Seahawks, this team might be going to Houston in a win-and-in game.
Even on Sunday, Riley Leonard uncorked a Hail Mary that made it to the end zone – and was in the vicinity of jump ball maven Alec Pierce – with the Colts down by six as time expired. And: The Colts' end-of-season schedule was an absolute gauntlet; the only opponent that won't continue playing after Jan. 4 is the Chiefs.
"Just finding a way collectively, as a unit, of finishing football games, that's really what it comes down to," head coach Shane Steichen said. "A play here, a play there, a call here, a call there – whatever it may be. Finding a way."
4. But do good teams lose six games in a row?
What Steichen said there brings us to something running back Jonathan Taylor touched upon in the home locker room at Lucas Oil Stadium on Sunday.
"When you lose five, six in a row, you start looking like hey, we have to be better," Taylor said. "Good teams don't lose five, six games in a row."
"... It's hard to win in this league and it's a small margin for error. Regardless of penalties and things like, that, you just think about actual plays — making a play, making a catch, getting the first down. It's those one, two, three of four plays that those great teams, they make. They find a way."
Most teams that miss the playoffs are left to lament a handful of plays that sealed their fate. The Colts are 3-6 in one-score games; they have more wins by 21 or more points (four) than wins by eight or fewer points (three).
Certainly, the Colts dealt with attrition beyond the quarterback position – missing defensive tackle DeForest Buckner and cornerbacks Charvarius Ward Sr. and Sauce Gardner for large stretches had an impact here. But every team deals with injuries to some extent, and no team will ever use them as an excuse. Even if one is to their starting quarterback.
"Obviously there are circumstances that are uncontrollable, some things, but there are controllable things that you can control," Steichen said. "You've got to fight and find ways to win tight games and that's what this league is at the end of the day. We haven't done a good enough job of that, and that starts with me. So, we've got to find ways to win tight games."
5. Okay, but the Colts weren't just good early in the season. They were great.
One last thing here: The Colts were absolutely not some fraudulent team that only was 8-2 because of an easy schedule. Sure, the Colts only played a handful of playoff teams over their first 10 games, but they annihilated their competition. Having a borderline historically-great offense that was top of the league in traditional metrics (yards, points scored, etc.) and advanced metrics (EPA/play, success rate, DVOA) along with a +115 point differential aren't things that just happen to teams that aren't good.
Back to those 21+ point wins for a moment. Three teams have four or more wins by 21+ points this season: The Seahawks (5), the Los Angeles Rams (4) and the Colts (4). The Seahawks and Rams are widely considered strong Super Bowl contenders. The Colts will miss the playoffs.
And the Colts will become the first team since the 2019 Dallas Cowboys to miss the playoffs in a season in which they won four or more games by 21 or more points.
We'll leave the final perspective here to someone overflowing with it in Rivers, who over his now two decades in the NFL has a keen way of digesting all this.
"The hot start is what probably makes the whole thing hurt even more," Rivers, who watched every game from his couch before jumping off it to play in Week 15, said. "If it has been one of those just kind of back-and-forth years the whole year – I mean shoot, you look up and you find a way to win nine games or whatever and you go shoot, it was just kind of a grinded kind of year. But the fact that they were at eight so soon, and it's been just a tough last six-game stretch or so.
"But I think you've got to be careful falling into the trap of – because I've done it since I've been here. Gosh, if we had done this and this, we would've beat Seattle and oh man, if we did this, would have won. But then you can go to the ones that we won – I say we with all due respect. I wasn't here. The ones you want to go, well you could have lost that one and that one and that one. So, you can't really play that game.
"It's the NFL. It's a tough league. 18 teams are going to be going home at the end. Only 14 of them are getting in. So, the majority of the NFL doesn't get in, and that's just the cold reality."
