Jan. 20, 2026, 9:47 a.m. ET<\/p>\n
It’s only mid-January, but ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler<\/a> is already making bold predictions for the 2026 NFL season. Included in one of these predictions were the Indianapolis Colts<\/a>.<\/p>\n Now, these aren’t just any predictions made by Fowler. To reach these conclusions, he has spoken with industry sources from around the NFL to help forecast the upcoming season.<\/p>\n So what prediction did Fowler have for the Colts<\/a>? Well, they’ll win the AFC South in 2026 for the first time since 2014.<\/p>\n “But they showed a proof of concept with what they had through 10 games,” an AFC executive said to Fowler. “They had Daniel Jones playing well. The roster has talent. They are closer than people might think.”<\/p>\n Through 10 games, the Colts were 8-2 and had one of the most productive offenses in football. Injuries, however, piled up over the second half of the season — although there were some cracks beginning to show before Daniel Jones and others’ seasons came to an end.<\/p>\n Expert NFL picks: Exclusive betting insights only at USA TODAY.<\/a><\/p>\n That success that the Colts were able to have through the first half of the season is a big reason why Indianapolis is running it back with GM Chris Ballard once again.<\/p>\n As principal owner Carlie Irsay-Gordon described,<\/a> the belief is that success is repeatable and sustainable.<\/p>\n To get to that point, Ballard will face some key roster decisions this offseason. This includes deciding whether or not several key free agents return<\/a>, along with reshaping some current positions<\/a> of need.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jan. 20, 2026, 9:47 a.m. ET It’s only mid-January, but ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler is already making bold predictions…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":693029,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2059],"tags":[95878,2005,7,2004,392,2381,6,49915,95900,96028,95882,96015,95892,95903,95896,95888,95895,95906,95883,95881],"class_list":{"0":"post-693028","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-indianapolis-colts","8":"tag-accessfree","9":"tag-colts","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-indianapolis","12":"tag-indianapolis-colts","13":"tag-indianapoliscolts","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-sstssportsnflcolts","16":"tag-sstsncolts","17":"tag-tagafc-south","18":"tag-tagamerican-football","19":"tag-tagdaniel-jones","20":"tag-tagespn-inc","21":"tag-tagindianapolis-colts","22":"tag-tagnational-sports","23":"tag-tagnfl","24":"tag-tagnfl-hub","25":"tag-tagoverall-positive","26":"tag-tagsports-news","27":"tag-typestory"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115931579365911203","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=693028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693028\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/693029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=693028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=693028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=693028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}