WESTFIELD, Ind. – The Colts held a two-hour scrimmage on Thursday night, with the 8 p.m. practice featuring a golden sunset, an arcing rainbow and quarterback Daniel Jones passing (and running) all over the field at Grand Park.
Outside of stretching, warm-ups and a couple breaks for special teams work, the entirety of the Colts' practice was 11-on-11 work. In those periods, Jones completed several passes to wide receivers Ashton Dulin and Nick Westbrook-Ikhine, including a spectacular back-of-the-end-zone grab by Dulin late into the night. Wide receiver Josh Downs and tight end Tyler Warren were involved quite a bit, too, with Warren snagging a hole shot from Jones down the sideline for an explosive play.
Freshly-extended running back Jonathan Taylor had a couple of chunk gains on runs, and he took a screen pass for plenty of yards, too. And running back Ulysses Bentley IV snagged a touchdown in the back corner of the end zone from Jones; later, he had impressive catch-and-run touchdown from quarterback Riley Leonard, with the 2025 undrafted free agent accelerating away from the defense and into the end zone.
Jones, too, took off to scramble twice – and looked impressive doing so, accelerating into open space. He also sprinted to his right on a rollout away from pressure on a two-point conversion attempt, again, not looking like a quarterback who's eight months out from an Achilles' tear.
The larger takeaway here is Jones continues to play with the sort of timing, accuracy and mobility that helped the Colts' offense soar over the first half of the 2025 season.
"He's on fire right now," head coach Shane Steichen said. "It's awesome to see. It's obviously a good sign for a football team when he's throwing the ball that way for sure."
News & Notes from Thursday's practice:
- The Colts' defense had several impressive moments during the scrimmage, too. Cornerbacks Sauce Gardner and Charvarius Ward Sr. each had physical pass break-ups, while defensive end Laiatu Latu dropped into coverage and swatted away a Jones pass late in practice.
- Linebacker Bryce Boettcher registered a "sack" – as in the whistle blew for one – on a blitz.
- Cornerback Mekhi Blackmon came down with a tipped interception, and linebacker Austin Ajiake also picked off a pass with the second-team defense. Blackmon later registered a PBU.
- Defensive tackle DeForest Buckner continued to progress, taking a handful of snaps during the scrimmage.
- Kickers Blake Grupe and Spencer Shrader each went 8/10 on field goals.
- Linebacker C.J. Allen (hamstring), wide receiver Laquon Treadwell (hamstring) and safety Hunter Wohler (hamstring) did not participate.
