Indianapolis Colts

The Indianapolis Colts finished 2025 at eight wins and nine losses, missing the playoffs for a fifth straight year after a historic collapse — seven straight losses to close the season. They started eight and two, their best opening since the 2009 team that ripped off fourteen in a row, then became the first team in NFL history to start eight and two and finish under five hundred. The year is two movies stitched together: a roaring Daniel Jones offense that scored on its first ten possessions and hung forty-one on the Titans in Week 3 and forty on the Raiders in Week 5 — and a quarterback-carousel slog after Jones tore his Achilles in the Week 14 loss to Jacksonville. The Week 1 thirty-three to eight beatdown of the Dolphins feels like a different franchise than the one that got muffed thirty to thirty-eight by Houston in Week 18. Add in the first season under Jim Irsay's three daughters and a defense forced to play practice-squad corners for half the year, and this franchise is at a genuine crossroads.

The team-level numbers tell the split. The Colts posted plus thirty-two point four in total passing expected points added — about thirty-two scoring-value points above an average offense — and plus forty point five on the ground, making the run game the most valuable unit on the roster. They converted forty-four percent of third downs (top ten) and averaged two hundred forty passing and one hundred nineteen rushing yards per game. But the variance is brutal: in their eight wins they averaged about thirty-five points; over their final seven losses they scored twenty, sixteen, nineteen, sixteen, twenty-seven, seventeen, and thirty. Boom for ten weeks, then a flat line. The turnover math explains the skid — twenty-one giveaways against twenty-one takeaways, dead even when an eight and two team should live in the plus column.

Now let's talk about the passing offense. With a healthy Daniel Jones this was a smashing unit — plus sixty-five point three in passing expected points added in thirteen games, and a completion percentage over expected of plus two point six, meaning he completed throws at a rate two and a half points better than an average quarterback on the same passes. Twenty-five passing touchdowns, only twenty-nine sacks allowed, and fifty-four explosive plays of twenty-plus yards — boom-or-bust to the core, because once Philip Rivers and rookie Riley Leonard took over, the passing game got muffed for a minus nineteen in passing expected points added across eight appearances. The headline was Alec Pierce, the field-stretcher who turned forty-seven catches into one thousand and three yards and six touchdowns on just eighty-four targets — a twenty-one-yards-per-catch season that gave this offense its explosive identity. With Jones upright, this attack was top-five dangerous. Without him, it disappeared.

Now let's dig into the rushing offense. This was the bedrock — plus forty point five in rushing expected points added, plus zero point zero nine per carry, and twenty-seven rushing touchdowns on four hundred thirty-one carries, an elite red-zone finishing rate. The Colts rumbled for one hundred nineteen yards a game and, unlike the passing attack, this unit stayed productive even as the quarterback room fell apart — the most consistent thing on the roster. Jonathan Taylor is the season MVP conversation by himself: one thousand five hundred eighty-five rushing yards on three hundred twenty-three carries, eighteen rushing touchdowns, forty-six catches for three hundred seventy-eight more yards, and he broke Edgerrin James's franchise record for rushing scores as a Colt. The signature play came Week 10 against Atlanta — second and two, down one in the fourth, Taylor took a handoff up the middle and went eighty-three yards untouched for the go-ahead score, a single snap worth over six expected points. That's the piece that held up.

Next up, the pass defense. This is where the Colts got muffed — plus twenty-six point four in passing expected points added allowed, and on defense you want a big negative, so plus twenty-six means opposing passers added over twenty-six points of value across the year. They surrendered four thousand four hundred sixty-two passing yards, or two hundred sixty-two and a half per game, near the bottom of the league. Thirty-nine sacks is a respectable pressure number, and Charvarius Lammons snagged a fourth-and-sixteen interception in the end zone against Tennessee in Week 3. But the variance was rough: they held Miami, the Titans, and the Raiders in check early, then got torched for forty-eight by the Forty-Niners in Week 16 and thirty-eight by Houston in Week 18. The root cause, per beat-writer reporting, was secondary injuries forcing coordinator Lou Anarumo to start practice-squad corners for nearly half the season — and the passing defense finished thirty-first in the league because of it.

And the run defense. This was the quiet strength of the team — minus twenty-one point seven in rushing expected points added allowed, and on defense that big negative is genuinely good, meaning opposing run games lost almost twenty-two points of scoring value trying to run on Indy. Steady floor all year: one hundred two rushing yards allowed per game at minus zero point zero five per carry, with just sixteen rushing touchdowns surrendered. Even during the seven-game losing streak the run defense never cratered — the losses came through the air, not on the ground. When this Colts defense faced a handoff, they smashed.