With Daniel Jones’s unfortunate season-ending Achilles injury during Sunday’s loss, the Indianapolis Colts are once again between a rock and a hard place at starting quarterback—and not just for the immediate future.
Having Anthony Richardson still recovering from a fractured orbital bone, and no clear timetable for his return, the Colts, who are currently out of the playoffs after such an impressive hot start, will now turn to rookie 6th round pick Riley Leonard to close out what’s quickly (and rather
shockingly) shaping up to be another late season collapse by Indianapolis. Something that has seemingly happened ever year for the franchise recently.
That may not be the worst of it though.
Jones, even as an NFL quarterback, realistically faces at least a 9-month recovery window, which could be overly optimistic, and would put him very close to the start of the 2026 regular season without any training camp and preseason work as training preparations.
For reference, if he undergoes surgery on Monday, that 9 month window would place him at September 8, 2026. The NFL season typically kicks off around September 10, 2026. There’s a chance Jones could even miss the first month or so of next season as he works himself back from that serious injury—and the Colts (or his next NFL team) could be overly cautious with him, so as to not suffer another setback or risk further injury.
As far as re-signing Jones though, the Colts may not have much of another viable option.
The team is without their next two first round picks from the Sauce Gardner trade deadline deal with the New York Jets, which makes finding an immediate successor harder. Yes, the Colts could still take a quarterback early in Round 2-3 to push Richardson (if he’s still here) for the potential starter’s job during next offseason and Jones’s potential early 2026 regular season absence, but it’s not exactly ideal either.
The 2026 free agent quarterback market is also very underwhelming with advanced football aged options such as Aaron Rodgers, Russell Wilson, and Joe Flacco headlining the class. Others like former Colt Gardner Minshew don’t exactly push the needle for much of any sort of renewed optimism in Indianapolis.
From that regard, it looks to me like Jones will be back, even if it’s on a shorter-term deal than he initially expected—with the Colts’ 2026 franchise tag at quarterback (~$46M) even as a potential option.
Re-signing Jones would allow the Colts to let him continue to rehab with the team this offseason and keep him close by in the building until he’s fully ready to return. While the NFL can also be a very calculated ‘what have you done for me lately’ business, there likely is also some recognition by the Colts ownership and current top brass that Jones played through the fractured fibula to help his team win games down the stretch, and that by doing so, he suffered a more severe lower leg injury, the torn Achilles, to his once otherwise healthy right leg.
A shorter-term deal allows for Jones to return fully healthy and rehab, but it still also covers the Colts as follows: A) that Jones is able to regain his prior form sooner rather than later, and B) while Jones is more durable than Richardson (who isn’t at this stage of his oft-injured early career?), he hasn’t exactly been an ironman for NFL QB standards either—even dating back to his prior recent tenure with the New York Giants.
There’s likely also some recognition by the Colts that Indianapolis may need to see a large sample size of work from Jones before dishing out a longer-term deal, given how he and the offense have collectively faded as of late.
In my opinion, Jones’s long timetable of recovery presumably bodes well for Richardson returning, perhaps with an earlier round QB pushing him for offseason and early season reps next year. The hope would be that if Jones were to miss the first month of the 2026 regular season, that the Colts could go .500 with whoever that next interim starting quarterback would be and at least give them a puncher’s chance to make the playoffs later on.
Given how brittle Jones and Richardson appear to be, it’s probably not a bad idea to pursue a QB3 upgrade over Leonard, who while played about as reasonably as well as you could’ve expected on Sunday, may not actually be a viable starting QB solution—much more in the Sam Ehlinger mold. Time will likely tell on that front this season with his anticipated extended late season audition here.
At this point, with no upcoming first round picks, there’s no real incentive for the Colts to tank, so they may as well ride it out with the best potential options they could realistically have to utilize at QB for both 2025 and 2026.
