The Indianapolis Colts officially announced their 2026 regular season schedule, and if you’re in for satire, there’s also a schedule release featuring the iconic and longstanding ‘The Simpsons.’
With a number of leaks occurring throughout Thursday, it was already speculated that the Colts would have a gauntlet of a stretch to open their regular season, with back-to-back
games against the Baltimore Ravens and Kansas City Chiefs to start, followed by a home game against the Houston Texans, a trip to London to face the Washington Commanders, and then traveling to one of the franchise’s personal ‘House of Horrors’ in Pittsburgh.
Both the Ravens and Chiefs underperformed last season, at least partially because of injuries, but it wouldn’t be surprising to see either squad playing in at least an AFC Title Game next year. The Colts have struggled to beat the Texans under head coach Shane Steichen, and haven’t won in Pittsburgh since November 9, 2008.
One could look at this two ways. 1) It’s realistically possible that starting quarterback Daniel Jones, who’s still rehabbing from a late season torn Achilles, will realistically not be close to being 100% to start the 2026 campaign. It could be better for the Colts to take their lumps early, when he’s not at full strength anyways—in the hopes of facing a softer schedule when he is (hopefully) later on.
On the other hand, perhaps a softer schedule would’ve allowed the Colts to hang around .500 or better, with a less than fully operational Jones, and prevent themselves from having to dig out of a potential early season hole—with the hope that he’d be at full strength later on against their stronger competition down the stretch.
At any rate, it’s the former now, so the Colts will have to plan and prepare accordingly to begin the 2026 trail.
Despite being the 4th (tied) easiest strength of schedule, this schedule doesn’t appear to be easy at all to me.
Even later on, there’s games against the Philadelphia Eagles, Cincinnati Bengals, a road game against the Cleveland Browns (which is a notoriously tough road environment), with the regular season finale hosting their AFC South rival Jacksonville Jaguars.
There’s rarely ‘easy games’ in the NFL, but the Colts will have to be ready and prepared to execute throughout.
