PHOENIX – The first 10 games of the Colts’ 2025 season were full of high points and major achievements, capped by a dramatic overtime win over the Atlanta Falcons in Berlin.

The Colts were rolling with the NFL’s best offense, a point differential of +115 and an 8-2 record that put them firmly among the NFL’s best teams. And then it all came to a screeching half, with quarterback Daniel Jones playing through a broken leg before sustaining a torn Achilles’ and seven consecutive losses crashing the Colts from the top of the AFC to out of the playoffs with an 8-9 record.

“It felt like a movie where we pressed pause and turned on and watched something that was really horrible,” Colts Owner and CEO Carlie Irsay-Gordon said.

But Irsay-Gordon’s vision for the 2026 Colts is to pop that movie back on to see what sort of ending it has. The success the Colts had in that stretch – they left Germany with fortified conviction they were a top-five team in the NFL at the bye week – was remarkable to the point that Irsay-Gordon believed trying to re-capture it was well worth the effort in the 2026 offseason.

“I want to press play and watch the end of this really amazing movie,” Irsay-Gordon said. “Because the ending, I think, is going to be amazing.”

The cast won’t entirely be the same, of course. Longtime Colts and ex-team captains in linebacker Zaire Franklin and wide receiver Michael Pittman Jr. were traded to the Green Bay Packers and Pittsburgh Steelers, respectively. Irsay-Gordon called those moves “gut-wrenching” given the significant contributions both players made on and off the field for the Colts.

“I think Pitt and Zaire represent our culture and what we want our players to stand for,” Irsay-Gordon said. “But Chris (Ballard) also said we need to get younger and we have a hard cap, and we have to look at sort of what’s best for the whole and we need to get some other people signed. Sometimes it’s kind of like the next man up.”

Those other players, of course, were headlined by Jones and wide receiver Alec Pierce. Jones finished top eight in the NFL last season in completion percentage, yards per attempt and passer rating; Pierce led the NFL in yards per reception and clocked his first career 1,000-yard season. It wasn’t lost on Irsay-Gordon, or the Colts, that both Jones and Pierce wanted to be back – together – in Indianapolis.

And nothing the Colts have seen from Jones since he sustained that Achilles injury has dissuaded them from believing he’ll play at a high level once he does return. Notably: Every update, so far, has pointed to Jones being ready for Week 1 of the 2026 season.

“To know that we’ve seen a lot of progress from Daniel and that he’s going to hit the ground running once he comes back from this injury, I think it also helps our team have an identity,” Irsay-Gordon said. “It helps the coaches and people like Shane know, okay, this is what we can do.”

Irsay-Gordon consistently pointed to Jones’ strong rapport and relationship with head coach Shane Steichen, which allowed the quarterback and offensive playcaller to access certain things within the Colts’ offense that put opposing defenses in a blender on a weekly basis. And another thing here, too: Irsay-Gordon, who has strong relationships with players across the Colts’ locker room, consistently heard from those players that they wanted to move forward with Jones behind center.

You’ll hear football coaches and executives say you can’t fool a locker room; and to the Colts’ locker room, there was nothing gimmicky or fake or unsustainable about Jones’ success last year.

“The rest of the team wanted Daniel back, too, and I think that’s really important to listen to what the team is saying, because they know everything,” Irsay-Gordon said. “The players know. And I think what their opinion is is important.”

And while the 2026 season won’t kick off for another five-plus months, Irsay-Gordon is itching to get back to the movie she – and all Colts fans – so enjoyed watching for a little over half of the 2025 season.

“Now we’re pressing play and we get to see what happens at the end,” Irsay-Gordon said, “which I think is gonna be a really cool thing.”