Locked On Colts - Daily Podcast On The Indianapolis Colts - MONDAY MOURNING: Daniel Jones Officially OUT for the Season + Diving Into Riley Leonard's Play

Episode Date: December 8, 2025

Indianapolis Colts' quarterback Daniel Jones is officially out for the season with a torn achilles. The team will now be relying on third-string rookie Riley Leonard to lead the way in this final play...off push. Is it even remotely possible to steal a game down the stretch? Find and follow Locked On Colts on your favorite podcast platforms: 🎧 https://lockedonpodcasts.com/podcasts/locked-on-colts/ 📺YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLdpxJspi1hMh5HL7ExpWOQ Give the squad a follow on X/Twitter @Schultz975, @JakeArthurNFL, @ZachHicks2, @allenpinkett, @LockedOnColts, and @ColtsOn_SI, as well on TikTok and Instagram! Locked On NFL League-Wide: Every Team, Fantasy, Draft & More 🎧 https://lockedonpodcasts.com/podcasts/locked-on-nfl/Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Aura FramesFor a limited time, save on the perfect gift by visiting https://AuraFrames.com to get $35 off Aura’s best-selling Carver Mat frames - named #1 by Wirecutter - by using promo code LOCKEDON at checkout.FanDuelIf you want to be right in the middle of the action this season, visit FanDuel.com and place your NFL live bets all season long.PrizePicksDownload the PrizePicks app today and use code LOCKEDONNFL to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup.Click Here: https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/LOCKEDONNFLGametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONNFL for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Download Gametime today. What time is it? Gametime.Mint MobileTurn your expensive wireless present into a huge wireless savings future by switching to Mint. Shop Mint Unlimited Plans at http://MINTMOBILE.com/LOCKEDONNFL.Disclaimer: Limited time offer. Upfront payment of: $45 for 3-mo., $90 for 6-mo., or $180 for 12-mo. plan required($15/mo. equivalent). Taxes & fees. Initial plan term only. >35GB may slow when network is busy. Capable device required. Availability, speed, & coverage varies. See mintmobile.com.ZocdocStop putting off your doctor’s appointments and get the care you need.Go to Zocdoc.com/lockedonnfl to find and instantly book a top-rated doctor today.FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Indianapolis Colts quarterback, Daniel Jones, is officially out for the season with a torn Achilles. Let's get to it. You are Locked-on Colts, your daily Indianapolis Colts podcast, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Hello, everyone. My name is Zach Hicks, a resident film nerd of horseshoe huddle.com. Welcome to Lockdown Colts, your one-stop shop for Colts commiseration the rest of the year. Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, now the number one sports podcast network. Today's episode is brought to you by Fanduel.
Starting point is 00:00:39 If you want to be right in the middle of the action this season, visit Fanduel.com and place your NFL live bets all season long. We have an action-pack show for you guys today, and by action-packed, I mean, pretty gloomy the show overall. The Indianapolis Colts are now out of the playoff picture, saying at 8 and 5 following a 36 to 19 loss at Jacksonville this past weekend. Their quarterback is out for the season with a torn Achilles, and the future looks bleak for this team.
Starting point is 00:01:08 So today we're going to dive into the Colts rest of the season outlook. Do they even have a chance whatsoever of making the playoffs? We're also going to dive into Riley Leonard, and again, does he even have a chance of success the rest of the way? But before we do that, let's close the book on Daniel Jones and his tenure this season with the Colts. Now, we're not ruling out that he could be back next year, but we'll talk about it a little bit later in this segment that it might be a little bit unlikely for that to happen. But Daniel Jones, you know, coming into the season, I had very, very low
Starting point is 00:01:40 expectations for him. I was very against the signing of Jones. I put him safely in that tier of like, okay, you're paying a pretty decent contract to get a Gardner-Minshu type season, and maybe a Joey Kobe Brissette type season from him. And he exceeded all of my expectations. Even in training camp, you could see that he could be a little bit better than a lot of what I expected him to be coming into the year. And then those first seven to eight games, he was on an absolute heater, played some outstanding football,
Starting point is 00:02:12 moved the ball exceptionally well. He was engineering the number one offense in the league. And yeah, part of that was the schedule they were going against. But also, it's hard to put up those points and hard to put up those numbers in a competitive league like the NFL. So Daniel Jones was doing a lot of great things for this team. And even as it kind of unraveled a little bit the last couple of weeks, I thought we still saw some good things from him against the Atlanta Falcons,
Starting point is 00:02:38 one of his rougher performances of the year. He really put the team on his back late in that game, delivered a couple of big-time plays and helped the Colts get over the hump and get that victory. You look at the Houston game, I thought he had one of the better performances of the year from any quarterback against the Houston Texans defense. Now, it wasn't some world beater type of game, but most quarterback struggle against that Houston defense, as we saw with Pat Mahomes this last night here. And Daniel Jones is able to throw for over 200 yards, two touchdowns, while dealing with that fracture in his fibula in his left leg. So I think he just had a very strong
Starting point is 00:03:15 performances throughout the year. I thought even during the struggles lately, he was still churning out some good performances and doing some good things for the team. And it's unfortunate that it ended on such a sour note with his Achilles being torn this past weekend against the Jacksono Jaguars. Even though he threw the interception on the first play, he bounced back with a really strong second drive. And he looked like he was going to put together another strong showing for the Colts. It just unfortunately ended with that bad step he took in that rainy conditions in Jacksonville.
Starting point is 00:03:45 And it really sucks for him going forward. So overall, Jones finished the season. with 68% completion percentage, 3,101 yards passing, 19 touchdowns, and 8 interceptions. He had 100.2 passer rating, a pretty healthy QBR as well. So I think that, you know, when we compare Daniel Jones to other quarterbacks in the Chris Ballard era, he is very, very safely the third best quarterback that the Colts have started. You can maybe argue him over Philip Rivers. I think Rivers just edges them out a little bit because they got into the playoffs and Rivers was able to
Starting point is 00:04:19 continue his play throughout the year. It's kind of unfair to Jones, but that is just what it is with that. But I think safely he is that third best quarterback. He completed a lot of his passes, move the ball effectively. I mean, the Colts offense, even if they go on this downward spiral, the rest of the year, is going to still be like a top 10 offense because of how strong they started the season. And a lot of that is because of how Jones performed and how he played in the early part of the year. So, yeah, I think he's firmly a third best quarterback. The Colts have started in the Chris Ballard era. He did a lot of really. good things. And he gutted out a lot of tough performances through injuries. I mean,
Starting point is 00:04:54 we'll always have that picture of his face bleeding late against Atlanta when they pulled off that victory. But yeah, going to the injury now, it's the most unfortunate injury that we can possibly have for him. You know, like if this was even something as dire as an ACL tear or a tear in his throwing shoulder, for instance, we could still talk ourselves into him being good for the start of next season. You get him back here on a one or two year contract with a lot of incentives and you go from there. But because it's an Achilles tear in his plant foot, it's just the toughest injury you can possibly deal with as a pro athlete at this point. There's a lot of studies out there right now in terms of, especially when it comes to the running back position, the edge rusher
Starting point is 00:05:36 position, the wide receiver position and cornerback position as well, where production just is not the same from these players for good two plus years coming off these Achilles injuries. And And even here in Indy, we have those personal examples to look at. Look at what happened with Dallas Flowers following his Achilles injury a couple years ago. He went from this young undrafted free agent corner that was explosive and a good return guy to being out of the league essentially right now. You look at Samson-Ebucom this season, and he went from the Colts best pass rusher a couple seasons ago to being just an afterthought on Sundays.
Starting point is 00:06:12 Marlon Mack, a thousand-yard rusher for the Colts, tore his Achilles, and he was out of the league coming back from that. Kila's a couple years later. So it is a devastating injury for players. The quarterback position is very cerebral, so maybe he can find a way around this. But with it being in his plant foot, and so much of that plant foot being the power that derives in quarterback mechanics, it's just a bleak outlook for him. And even if this injury is something that he can recover from technically and get back on the field somewhere between eight to 12 months or, you know, eight to nine months, or maybe on the optimistic end,
Starting point is 00:06:47 he can get back out there in like seven to eight months and be ready for the start of next season. Who knows what he's going to look like? We've seen quarterbacks like Kirk Cousins and Aaron Rogers the last couple years with their torn Achilles and their plant foot, just not look the same throwing the football and it taking some time for them to get back. Look how zapped Aaron Rod.
Starting point is 00:07:05 I know Rogers is an older quarterback and Cousins is as well, but look how completely zapped those guys look at throwing the football these last couple years. They just don't even have nearly the same. same arm talent that they have because they lost so much power in their plant legs. So unlike those two guys, Jones is still relatively young for the position. He can still get back on track somewhere down the line. But for Jones, I mean, I don't know if it's going to be possible for next season to be as productive as it was this year with him because there's
Starting point is 00:07:35 going to be so much that he has to overcome. He is a warrior. He's a tough player. There was all the documented stuff of him dealing with a broken collarbone in college and obviously dealing with the broken, the fractured fibula this year. So I'm not doubting his toughness in any way, but the human body has limits. And the Achilles is one of the biggest limits that is out there for pro athletes right now. And for him to deal with this kind of injury,
Starting point is 00:07:59 this late in the season, like, yeah, he's out for the rest of this year, but I think a lot of next year is going to be in doubt for him too. And we look at this Colts team, there's not really another option at quarterback outside of Anthony Richardson for next season, which I know when I post this, a lot of the comments are not going to be happy about,
Starting point is 00:08:14 but like it's it's Richardson the Achilles recovering Daniel Jones or you're at the bottom of the barrel here with like the Aaron Rogers or the Russell Wilson's of the world and maybe seeing if those guys can do it so the outlook for Daniel Jones is pretty bleak for next season but for the Colts I mean for a team that doesn't have their first round pick next year that we're putting all their eggs in the Daniel Jones basket I don't even know if you can bring him back right now because of that injury you know because if you don't think he can get back to what he was until 2027, who knows what this team is looking like in 2027. Who knows who the head coach is then?
Starting point is 00:08:50 Who knows who the GM is? It's hard to really bank on waiting for his recovery when pretty much everyone here could be gone by then. If they missed the playoffs this year and miss the playoffs next year without their first round picks, you gave up some valuable assets here and you don't even have a quarterback to show for it. So it's just in a really unfortunate situation. But I didn't want to be all doom and gloom in this first segment.
Starting point is 00:09:13 I really wanted to finish off this first segment by saying Daniel Jones exceeded my expectations in every way this year. He fought on Sundays. He played some really good football. And he was a big part of what made this first half of the season exceptionally fun for the Colts. Yes, there were some highs and lows. He wasn't a perfect quarterback.
Starting point is 00:09:31 But I think this was safely the third best quarterback we've seen in the Chris Ballard era. He deserves a lot of credit for how he came in here, won over the locker room and played some really good football. And I don't want to just ski. like just you know get on past that you know i want to acknowledge that at least one more time before the end of the season that daniel jones deserves his flowers uh i i feel for the guy he lost so much money on sunday trying to gut through that injury and then now dealing with this massive massive achilles
Starting point is 00:09:58 injury uh he will bounce back i'm sure but you know it's just a really unfortunate situation for him and i wish him the best going forward but uh he deserves a lot of credit for how he played this year Daniel Jones did a lot of good things, and he's one of the biggest reasons why the Colts are even sitting at eight wins this season. But coming up, guys, we have another quarterback to talk about, and that is Riley Leonard, the new man for the team, the next four weeks, the next month of the season. Riley Leonard, the six-round rookie quarterback will have a chance to earn his worth in the NFL. But first, the holidays are officially here, which means gift hunting season. is on. And if you want something meaningful, personal, and guaranteed to give a reaction, ORAM's is the gift that delivers every single time. It's not just something that you wrap.
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Starting point is 00:12:01 All right, locked on Colts everydayers. We are back. I am Zach Hick, your favorite co-host here at the Lockedong Colts podcast. I want to thank you guys for making Lockdown Colts your first list of the day and thank you for making locked on the number one sports podcast network. We have more quarterback talk here on the Monday morning episode and by morning I obviously mean like the funeral morning rather than the morning of the day here. As we're talking about the Colts bleak outlook the rest of the season and now we're going to transition to talking about Riley Leonard. Now Riley Leonard
Starting point is 00:12:30 for a six round rookie quarterback in the rain on the road having to deal with everything he dealt with. I thought it was a perfectly fine performance from him. He finished the day with 145 yards passing and had a rushing touchdown. Technically, he threw an interception, but I think I speak for all Colts fans and like 99.9% of football fans that I'm not counting that interception ever going forward. I don't care what the NFL says. I don't care what it goes down in the stat sheet. That was not an interception, and it never will be an interception. So they can just come at me with that one there. But yeah, Riley Leonard, 145. yards in this game and a rushing touchdown got his first touchdown of his career
Starting point is 00:13:09 through two other pretty close touchdowns as well, which we're not going to complain too much about. But yeah, Leonard, I thought, played fairly well given the situation and given the circumstances. I think, you know, talking about the positives, he's a pretty good quarterback when it comes to just getting that back foot down, planting and delivering when his mechanics are set, when he can get his feet set, and you can just deliver over the middle of the field. I think you see some really good things from him, converted a handful of third downs. I think it was on his second drive of the game that got the Colts of field goal. I thought he looked really good on that drive in particular. We saw so mobility with him getting outside the
Starting point is 00:13:45 pocket delivering a couple throws to like Alec Pierce outside the pocket and moving the football pretty effectively. And yeah, I think overall it was a fine performance for what he is. But at the end of the day, he kind of is what he is, you know, in terms of he's a six round rookie quarterback. There's a reason why he fell to the sixth round. And for every example that we want to say like, oh, he could be the next Tom Brady, it could be the next Brock Purdy. There's also 300 players that he could be the next of, you know, he could be the next Sam Ellinger, you know, which is a fine career like third string quarterback, but not a guy you want to throw out there on Sundays.
Starting point is 00:14:18 When it comes to his overall limitations that we saw out there this past weekend, I think his arm is firmly in like that average category at best, like it's a fairly average arm. There were a couple balls that fluttered on him, especially throwing outside the numbers or throwing down the field. Again, his near touchdown to Pearson is almost touchdown to Michael Pittman Jr. We're nice little balls down the sideline. But aside from that, I thought a lot of his balls did flutter away from that, like, intermediate middle of the field range that he liked to throw.
Starting point is 00:14:48 There were some questionable decision making in terms of RPO's and read option plays that most notably the fourth and one stuff attempt to Jonathan Taylor was a read option that he should have pulled the ball on. There was nobody coming to him. if he pulls that he gets a good 10 plus yard gain unfortunately gave the ball at the middle of jonathan taylor which the entire defense collapsed on and ended up being a stuff on that play so yeah there are some some negatives in his game the safety he took i thought was was just something that you can't take as a quarterback in the NFL if you want to have some success uh but again he shouldn't
Starting point is 00:15:24 have been in that situation it's it's a freaky situation where you know the starting quarterback tears his achilles the back of quarterback gets hurt with a practice band uh and now as a six-rounder who's expecting to be the clipboard holder all season to learn and develop and maybe be a career backup, he now has to fight for the Colts playoff lives here in the last month of the year. So what can the Colts do with Riley Leonard to find success in this final month? I think a lot of it is you just got to, you know, it's going to be a limited offense, you know, because again, Leonard is not this NFL ready quarterback right now. He needs time to maybe develop into a backup caliber guy, so you're not going to be able to throw the full
Starting point is 00:16:04 playbook at him. He's not going to be able to make these full field reads, go through his progressions with ease and have the comfortability back there, and especially when teams are able to get in like third and eight, third and nine, they're going to bring the house on him, and that's going to be tough for any young quarterback, let alone a six-round rookie. So it's going to be tough. You can't throw the full playbook at him. I think a big part of it is you're going to have to just limit the playbook, find the plays
Starting point is 00:16:26 that he likes the best, and really lean. to his strengths, which is those read options and RPO's and quick hitters over the middle, you know, some high, low concepts over the middle of the field where he can just hit his back foot and deliver based off reading one or two defenders. I think those can be the best type of situations for him and just lean into his ability as a runner as well. Look, I know they're one injury away now from Brett Rippin being out there, but we're already on the third quarterback. You know, we can't just be super cautious with him. I'm not. not saying be reckless with him, but if one of his strengths is running the football,
Starting point is 00:17:03 we can lean into him running the football a little bit because that's what he was good at at Notre Dame. It's a big reason why Notre Dame got to the college football playoff last year and got to the final game because of his legs. And I think the Colts need to lean into that a little bit. So, you know, can they generate points with him at quarterback? Sure. Absolutely. Especially if the other guys around him step up. But it's going to be in a very limited capacity. It's not going to be the same way they were winning with Daniel Jones, the same way they would have won with Anthony Richardson because he's just not that level of quarterback right now. He's, he's very green, he's very young, and it's a tough situation for him. But as long as he has a good week of
Starting point is 00:17:41 practice, you can find the plays that he's looking for. And, you know, things can just go right around him and then get some lucky bounces. Sure, they can put up points on Sundays. But how consistent can it be? Can he give them those plus plays? Can he give them those difference making plays that separate the good from the great teams, that's going to be, that's going to remain to be seen, I guess, on Sundays. Because it's just, it's just tough, man. It's so tough to play quarterback in the NFL.
Starting point is 00:18:06 Look how it's gone for Anthony Richardson, for instance, when he's got out there. Look how long it took Daniel Jones to find the rhythm that he found this year with the Colts. It's difficult to play this position in the league, especially when you're coming into the situation that Riley Leonard is, where, look, we saw on Sunday a lot of the Colts team just kind of gave up when Jones went down and they went into this massive. of Lull. And even when Leonard was out there making some plays, the guys around him were
Starting point is 00:18:30 letting him down and letting down this team. It's going to be hard to inspire the guys. It's going to be hard to get out there and make those plays. Now it's on those other professionals to step up and make those plays for him. But yeah, it's a situation you never want to put a rookie quarterback into. You know, the Colts are very much in the Tom Manning aspect of the world right now where they're kind of screwed and we don't practice screwed. Well, we're going to be practicing screwed the last month of the season here. But, you know, overall, I think they can find some success with Riley Leonard. You want to run the ball a little bit more with, with the offense in general.
Starting point is 00:19:06 We want to use Riley Leonard's legs, get the quick screen game going and get a lot of the play action, RPO game going and try not to make him make these like full field reads or have to read multiple defenders, make it be more of these one, two reads and how sustainable is that in the NFL? I don't know. It's going to be tough, but that's probably the way they have to operate here. Operate the way that, you know, the Green Bay Packers have operated the last couple years when Malik Willis has been in there. I think that's probably your best plan of attack to maybe steal some points and steal some wins down the stretch here. But coming up, guys, we're going to
Starting point is 00:19:42 wrap up this entire show by talking about the Colts playoff chances this season. I don't know if we're going to talk about this much more the rest of the year because I think we all know the answer here. But can the Colts get into the playoffs without Daniel Jones and with Riley Leonard starting at quarterback? We're going to answer that big question here in the final segment to close out today's show. But first, the World Cup is coming back to North America for the first time since 1994. And with 48 teams for the first time ever, it's going to be massive. But let's be honest, getting tickets is usually the hardest part. That's why game time app is clutch. Finally, giving fans a real advantage when it comes to snagging those seats.
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Starting point is 00:22:03 visit fanduil.com and place your NFL live bets all season long fan duel the game moves fast and so can you all righty locked on colts every day is We are back to close out this show. We started off the show by talking all about Daniel Jones's play to start the year and kind of giving a big thank you to the way that he played this season. He fought through a lot, played some really good football. We took a look at Riley Leonard and how the Colts probably have to slim down the playbook a little bit and just raise their execution to a very high level if they won't have any success the rest of the year.
Starting point is 00:22:41 But let's close it out by looking at just the Colts chances down the stretch here. The Colts are sitting at 8 and 5. They're currently the number eight seed in the ASC. So they're one spot out of the playoff race. They did lose a couple tiebreakers recently with losses to the Texans and the Jaguars. We'll see if those come into play late in the season here. We'll certainly see. But yeah, you know, the Colts technically have like a 51% chance to make the playoffs by most models,
Starting point is 00:23:09 roughly a 15% chance of winning the division. But I think a lot of that doesn't account for what's happening with the injury front with this Colts team. and Daniel Jones is out for the year. Sauce Gardner out for a couple more weeks. We'll see it to Forrest Buckner can come back at any time. Anthony Richardson likely out for the year as well. We haven't got anything official there, but we also haven't got anything promising with him coming back.
Starting point is 00:23:29 So, yeah, the culture down to the third string quarterback. Multiple injuries across the line, probably no Braden Smith this week with his concussion. We'll see on Alec Pierce this week as well. And oh, yeah, they have the toughest schedule of all the AFC contending teams down the stretch. They go at Seattle this week. They play San Fran in a Monday night or on a Sunday night game, I believe at Sunday or Monday night game. It's a prime time football game against the San Francisco 49ers.
Starting point is 00:23:55 They play a home game against Jacksonville and then they go to Houston to close out the season. So that's four playoff teams right there, two of which teams have already beat them on the year. And they're doing so again with their third string quarterback without two of their three best defensive players and with the team overall in this kind of big skid right now. So what are the chances that the Colts can steal two wins here, get to 10 wins, and get in the playoffs? Nothing's impossible in the NFL. But on the scale of impossible to possible, this is closer to impossible when it comes to this team. And I think it's safer to project the Colts not making the playoffs with all this. I know I'm going on the limb by saying this, but even if Daniel Jones were healthy right now following a loss to Jacksonville,
Starting point is 00:24:42 it would be tough to see this team squeaking into the playoffs with the remaining schedule, with the way the team has played lately. I mean, the defense took a major step back this past Sunday, and they look lifeless for most of that game. The offense has been in this big time rut where Jonathan Taylor has kind of regressed. Tyler Warren's hit a rookie wall. Some of the past catchers, Sam, Alec Pierce, have really taken a step back. And overall, this team looks just very lethargic and lifeless right now.
Starting point is 00:25:08 I mean, they had two must-win games these past two weeks, and even if we want to put the Jacksonville game aside. The Houston game, they look lethargic for half of that game, which just can't happen in a home game against the division. You know, so what are the odds that even with Daniel Jones that they would get two wins in these last four to get in the playoffs? I'm not sure. But now we're going to Riley Leonard, who, look, I hope the best for this young quarterback. I hope he can come out here and be the next Tom Brady. But without him being the next Tom Brady, I don't know if that's going to be good enough for the Colts to get into the playoffs this year. So, yeah, they would need a monumental collapse from two of these four teams that they're playing against.
Starting point is 00:25:47 Plus, they need to capitalize on all those mistakes that those teams make and still get points on the board and hold out in the end. So I'm not really going to be banking too much here. I will say this, you know, we have seen teams win with backups and third string quarterbacks before in the NFL. Look at Houston right now, right? Houston is on a five-game winning streak, and most of those wins came with their backup players. quarterback in there. And they beat two playoff teams with their back of quarterback in the Buffalo Bills and the Jacksonville Jaguars. So you can win with your back of quarterback. But how did Houston win with that quarterback in there? The rest of the team stepped up.
Starting point is 00:26:24 Their playmaker is an offense step. The offensive line was playing some great football. They ran the ball effectively for the first time all year. And oh, yeah, their defense took the onus on themselves and said, we need to completely shut down opponents, which given they're the best defense in football, they've been doing that all year. But, but. but your entire roster needs to step up when your quarterback is not out there. There's a reason why the most valuable player award only goes to quarterbacks because it is the most valuable position in the league. Now, can you win without a quarterback?
Starting point is 00:26:52 Sure, you can win any game on Sunday without anything because it's a crazy, closely, you know, competitive sport, but you need everything to break your way and you need guys to step up around the quarterback to make sense. So look, the Colts have multiple all-pro and pro-ball caliber guys on this team. that have been here for a long time. I mean, not counting the injured guys right now. They have Jonathan Taylor. They have Quentin Nelson.
Starting point is 00:27:16 Michael Pittman Jr. I mean, Alec Pierce is playing great this year. Tyler Warren, the top, you know, a top pick rookie tight end. Layat Toulat to a top 15 pick defensive end. Charvarius or Mooney Ward on the back end. So Mooney Ward. Cameron Bynum.
Starting point is 00:27:30 Zaire Franklin, a former all pro. Like these guys need to step up if you want to have any chance at making the playoffs. Because whether it's Riley Leonard, Daniel Jones, Andrew Luck, or Zach Hicks playing quarterback for you, you know, you can still control what you control. If it's not good enough, it's not good enough. But allowing 36 points to the Jacksonville Jaguars with your defense that you're never going to win with whoever's that quarterback, you know? But if you go out there and actually compete and play the football that you think you can play and hold teams down, you can make it a game where your quarterback can, regardless of who your quarterback is, can give you a chance to win.
Starting point is 00:28:04 But do we expect that from this Colts team? that's where I struggle right now because why would I expect that out of anything with this Colts team? I mean, not only with the Chris Ballard era Colts, but like since Peyton Manning was here, like these Colts teams have come up short constantly late in seasons,
Starting point is 00:28:20 regardless of who they have, regardless of what advantage they have late in the year. So do I think they can rally around Riley Leonard now and get these wins? Absolutely not. We've seen this leadership group since 2018, you know, with, I mean, Zire Franklin's been here since 2018. We've seen Kenny Moore been here
Starting point is 00:28:36 since then. Quentin Nelson's been here since then. Jonathan Taylor's been here, you know, since 2020. And what is it done for the Colts? Nothing. Even if they had the advantage, even if Daniel Jones was healthy, we have seen this team fade down the stretch far too often. So now I need to bank on them to just come around Riley Leonard and prop up this six-round rookie quarterback to get them into the playoffs. No, absolutely not. You know, I'm not trying to be a doomer here, but I'm trying to be realistic with you guys that even with their starting quarterback, it would be a struggle for me to believe in them following them losing four of their last five games. But now with it being Riley Leonard out there, I don't see it happening whatsoever.
Starting point is 00:29:16 They just don't have that leadership group. They don't have the physicality. I don't know, the guts, the winning mentality that you need. They just have never brought that in my time covering this team. So maybe this can be the first time that we see it from them. But I highly, highly doubt it. You know, I think everyone needs to be perfect around Leonard for the Colts to have a chance down the stretch. And I have no reason to believe that they actually will be perfect because they've never given me a reason to believe that in December since I've covered this team.
Starting point is 00:29:47 I've covered this team since 2018. I've never seen it happen. So take that for what it will. I don't think the Colts have a shot at the playoffs the rest of the way. And I think this is going to be one of the biggest collapses, not only in franchise history, but an NFL history. Part of that is obviously the quarterback injury, but it wasn't trending well regardless. this before that. So take that for it, you will. The Colts are staring down the barrel at an eight and nine finish to this season after starting seven and one. And we'll talk about probably
Starting point is 00:30:15 later this week what that means for the future of this team, especially when they don't have a first round pick after this year or next year because the Sauce Carter trade. I mean, gosh, I mean, when I say you're one-stop shop for commiseration with the Colts, I mean, I truly mean it. But that's all I have for today, guys. Thank you for making Lockdown Colts, your first listen today and every day, the NFL season's in full swing. So if you're your next listen, get a double dose of the locked on NFL podcast. Tyler, the Madman, Roland,
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