The Colts Aren't Dead Yet: Why The AFC South Prophecies Of Doom Are Getting Way Ahead Of Themselves

Now listen here, folks. I've been watching football long enough to know when the so called experts get ahead of their skis, and brother, that's exactly what's happening with all this doom and gloom talk about the Indianapolis Colts heading into 2026. Everybody's out here writing obituaries like the Colts folded up shop and moved to Tulsa or something. The Houston Texans are getting all the love, the Jacksonville Jaguars are supposed to be in freefall, and poor old Indianapolis is getting treated like they're the Washington Generals of the AFC South, you know, the team that shows up just to lose to the Globetrotters.

But I'm telling you, that's not how this thing shakes out. Not even close.

Let me start by saying this: I get it. The Texans have done some nice things. They got themselves a young quarterback in C.J. Stroud who can make all the throws and won't beat himself. They've got some offensive weapons that are fun to watch. They've been ascending while Indianapolis has been dealing with some real challenges. I understand why people think Houston's got the inside track to winning this division. But here's the thing about the AFC South and here's the thing about football in general. It's not played on paper. If it was played on paper, we could just mail trophies to people and save everybody a whole lot of time and effort.

The Colts have themselves one of the most underrated football minds in the entire league coaching them, and that matters more than people want to believe. Andrew Luck may have retired and shocked the world, but Indianapolis didn't just roll over and play dead. They've had to get creative. They've had to figure things out. You know what that does to an organization? It toughens you. It makes you smarter. I think about great teams from history, and I think about how many of them had to overcome adversity and doubt. The 1970 Baltimore Colts lost Johnny Unitas and people thought they were finished. Then Earl Morall stepped in and they went 11 and 3. Life happens in football, and organizations that survive it come out stronger on the other side.

The quarterback situation in Indianapolis is the thing everybody wants to talk about like it's a death sentence, but I want to push back on that narrative real hard. Yes, they've had their ups and downs at the position. But that's not some unique curse that only affects the Colts. Every team in this league is one or two injuries away from having to figure things out at quarterback. That's just the reality of professional football. What matters is having good coaching and good supporting cast, and the Colts have both of those things. They've got weapons on offense. They've got a defense that can be respectable. They're not sitting there with nobody around them.

And here's something else that doesn't get mentioned enough. The AFC South is not some murderer's row of excellence. This is not the AFC West we're talking about here. This is not some group where there's multiple Super Bowl contenders fighting it out every single year. The Texans are good, sure, but they're not so good that you can just pencil them into the playoffs and treat the rest of the division like fourth placers. The Jacksonville Jaguars had one heck of a year two seasons back and then came back down to earth. That's not surprising. That's not unusual. Young teams fluctuate. That's what they do.

I think back to 2007, 2008 era football, and I remember how divisions would shift and change. You'd have a team that looked great one year and then looked pedestrian the next. You'd have a team that looked bad and then made some adjustments and came storming back. That's the beauty of this game. That's why you play the seasons. Because things change. Personnel changes. Coaching adjustments happen. Guys get healthy. Guys get hurt. These are all variables that make it impossible to just coronary the Houston Texans as AFC South champions in June.

What I'm seeing when I look at the Colts is an organization that's not panicking. They're being methodical. They're being smart. They understand that winning in this league is about establishing identity, about protecting the football, about playing defense, about winning the turnover battle. These are not complicated concepts, but they're not easy to execute either. The Colts know this. They've got coaches who understand this. They've got a front office that's not making knee jerk reactions.

The Jaguars regression talk is funny to me because it assumes that teams can't adjust and improve. Jacksonville had some injuries last season that affected their performance. Did they play poorly in stretches? Sure. But they also showed resilience. They showed they could fight. That's a young team that's learning how to win in this league, and learning takes time. The idea that they're just permanently broken now is premature as all get out.

But the main thing here is this: the AFC South is wide open. That's the real story. That's what people should be talking about instead of writing these premature obituaries for teams that still have plenty of football to play. Houston might win this division, sure. But it's not a lock. The Colts might surprise people. Jacksonville might bounce back. Tennessee might even be in the conversation by the time we're talking about September games.

What this means for fans is simple. Don't let anybody tell you what's going to happen before the games are played. Don't buy into narratives that are built on nothing but air. The beauty of football is that weird things happen. The unexpected occurs. The underdog comes through. The favorite underperforms. This is why we play the games. This is why we love this sport. The Colts aren't dead. They're not washed up. They're not out of the picture. They're just getting started, and anybody who's written them off already is going to look pretty foolish come playoff time.