EverBank Stadium (Jacksonville) — With first place in the AFC North on the line against the Jaguars, the Colts knew a loss on the scoreboard would be costly Sunday.
The loss on the field, with quarterback Daniel Jones sustaining an Achilles injury feared to be season-ending, could be much worse.
“It hurts. It’s a dagger,” Colts cornerback Kenny Moore said at his locker after a 36-19 defeat.
“That was definitely a gut punch,” said running back Jonathan Taylor, whose team has lost four of five after a 7-1 start. “We’ve got to catch ourselves. You’ve got to find some way, somehow, to catch yourself. You’re going into a free-fall, whatever it takes, individually and collectively, to put your foot down … to say we’re not going to continue to let this snowball.”
Only one NFL team in the past 25 years has opened 7-1 and missed the playoffs, but there’s a real danger of that if Jones is lost as expected and the Colts need to rally around rookie Riley Leonard, the team’s No. 3 quarterback. Leonard, who had thrown two NFL passes before Sunday, had 145 passing yards and a rushing touchdown in his first real NFL action.
“The biggest thing today for me was to walk off to the sidelines and have guys like [Colts guard] Quenton Nelson come up to me and say he believes in me,” said Leonard, a sixth-round pick from Notre Dame. “Everybody on the sideline was just very supportive. … I still say they believe in me, so I take that and run with it.”
Prressed into service, rookie quarterback Riley Leonard went 18-for-29 for 145 yards with one interception against the Jaguars. (Photo by David Rosenblum/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Two months into the season, Jones was the surprise star in the Colts’ unexpected success, with 13 touchdowns against two interceptions in their 7-1 start. Indianapolis had survived the struggles of Anthony Richardson, the No. 4 overall pick in 2023, pivoting to Jones on a one-year, $14 million contract. At the trade deadline, they went all-in, sending their next two first-round picks to the Jets for corner Sauce Gardner, who missed Sunday’s game with a calf injury.
Richardson is on injured reserve with an eye injury and there’s no timetable for his return, so instead of Jones, the Colts must try to collect themselves and rally around a rookie quarterback. Their final four opponents — the Seahawks, 49ers, Jaguars and Texans — represent a daunting stretch. All four teams have records as good as or better than the Colts’, and all are vying for playoff positioning.
So what does coach Shane Steichen tell his players about bouncing back and having to play well in the final four games?
“Dang right we do,” Steichen said on the podium after the loss. “We’ve got to get this one cleaned up, and it’s all about the next one. Shoot, we’ve got everything we want in front of us, you know? We’ve got to get this thing cleaned up and get ready for Seattle. We’ve got a big one on the road. That’s the message right there.”
The Colts’ problems had started long before Jones went down Sunday. Their lone win in the past four games was an overtime escape against the Falcons in Berlin, with one-score losses to the Steelers, Chiefs and Texans. They didn’t start well against Jacksonville, giving up touchdowns on back-to-back drives for a 14-7 deficit before Jones went down with a non-contact injury. The Colts’ defense gave up two more touchdowns by halftime, trailing 28-10 on the way to giving up a season-high 36 points.
“We’ve got to rally and be a brotherhood,” Moore said. “We’ve got to execute the things that we’re talking about.”
Steichen was an NFL Coach of the Year candidate in the first half of the season, and now he’s tasked with avoiding a nearly unprecedented collapse. Since the year 2000, the only team to start 7-1 and miss the playoffs was the 2012 Bears, who still managed to finish 10-6 and lose out on a tiebreaker. The Colts would need two wins to match that total, and there aren’t any easy wins left on the schedule.
The Colts had a 68% chance of making the playoffs according to The Athletic’s playoff simulator before Sunday’s game, and the loss drops them to an even 50%, though it doesn’t feel as easy as a coin flip. Two of those final four games are rematches of their last two divisional losses to the Texans and Jaguars. A 2-2 finish would likely get them in the playoffs, but to do that with a rookie quarterback and a team that’s lost three straight and four out of five won’t be easy.
“As you go through a season, you’re going to go through some storms and some adversity,” Steichen said. “You’ve got to overcome those, and that’s part of being a professional athlete and a coach, staying steady through that process, to keep believing and fighting like crazy. So that’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to fight like crazy and believe, and we know that we’ve got a big one coming up on the road.”
Greg Auman is an NFL Reporter for FOX Sports. He previously spent a decade covering the Buccaneers for the Tampa Bay Times and The Athletic. You can follow him on Twitter at @gregauman.
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