Q's with few A's

 The Indianapolis Colts died trying again yesterday, this time falling 38-30 to the playoff-bound Houston Texans. It was their seventh straight loss to close out the 2025 season, which at one point held so much promise when Daniel Jones was ambulatory and the Colts were 8-2 and looking like the best team in the AFC.

And then ...

Well. We know all about "then", don't we?

First, Jones cracked his fibula, and then he tore his Achilles, and then Riley Leonard got hurt. With Anthony Richardson already on the shelf, the Colts had to call 44-year-old granddad Philip Rivers off his living room couch to play quarterback.

Rivers played like, I don't know, a 35-year-old, maybe, a minor miracle in itself. But the Colts lost all three games he started.

So yesterday they handed the car keys to Leonard, who played OK enough:  21-of-34, 270 yards, two touchdowns and a rating of 94. It was enough to convince at least some people in Indy media (i.e.: Indy Star columnist Gregg Doyel) he'd not only make a decent QB2, but maybe, in time, even a decent QB1. Which I suppose means hope springs eternal when you've just watched a good football team circle the drain thanks to a horribly unlucky run of injuries.

By the time the season ended under water at 8-9, after all, the Colts' injured-reserve room had become the hey-we've-got-no-more-room-in-here room. Guys were sitting in the lobby reading year-old Ligament Illustrateds waiting for a space to open up.

So what now?

Lots of questions. Not nearly enough answers.

First off, how soon will Daniel Jones be back, and in what condition? 

Depending on the latter, will he still be QB1?

If he's not, does the job devolve to Riley Leonard?

Because what are the Colts going to do with AR, whose eye injury has put his future in limbo? Has the hardest of hard-luck stories turned the last page in Indy?

Lots of Q's. Very few A's.

Here are some more: What about the draft? Will GM Chris Ballard screw it up again? (Though, to be fair, he did get the NFL's next great tight end in 2025). Will he even be around to screw it up? 

No doubt a healthy slice of the Colts fan base hope he won't be, given that in nine years he's produced zero division titles and just two playoff appearances. But all indications out of Indy are that the Irsay daughters will stand pat with both Ballard and head coach Shane Steichen, at least for one more year.

Which makes about as much sense as not.

If you're getting rid of Ballard, see, you have to get rid of Steichen, too, because the new GM is going to want his own guy in the big chair. And if you get rid of both, you're starting from scratch with a team that, to reiterate, was a damn good football team until all the injuries hit.

I'm not saying that's the logic at work here. I'm not even saying it is logic as we humans understand it. I'm just saying it sounds like the logic at work here.

In any case, dumping Ballard and Steichen may or may not be the answer to the Colts' core woes. That may lie elsewhere.

Me, I'd dump the medical staff first. Just a thought.