Not only is the season essentially over for the Indianapolis Colts, but an organizational failure as complete as their Week 8 loss against the Jacksonville Jaguars means sweeping changes have to be made. Losing in a final score of 42-7, this is a Colts team that has fully quit by the first day of November.
Let's get the excuses out of the way: yes, the Jaguars are a very good team, but this was an effort so pitiful that the game was already decided by halftime. That is simply unacceptable in the NFL, especially for a coaching staff fighting for their jobs.
This was some of the most uninspired football to ever be played by a team donning the white and blue of the Indianapolis Colts. The fans deserve better, and ownership has to recognize that. It may seem unfathomable after the team's red-hot start to 2025, but the Indianapolis Colts are heading full-throttle towards a complete and total rebuild.
Indianapolis Colts who shoulder the blame in Week 8 loss
No. 1: Head coach Shane Steichen
Yes, it's time. Steichen reached some soaring highs at the peak of his coaching tenure with Indianapolis, but this was a crucial week to prove he still had control over the team. It's clear after such a pitiful effort that he has lost the locker room. The body language of Indy's players by halftime showed that they had already accepted defeat.
Yes, the team was obviously hampered by the losses of Quentin Nelson and DeForest Buckner to the trade market. That made it all the more pivotal for Shane Steichen to prove that he still had the command of the team. He failed spectacularly in his attempt to do that.
This is a team that has checked out not only for their Week 8 game, but more than likely for the season. A 42-7 loss is catastrophic enough to cause that when taking this game into the context of the rest of the season.
This may be the nail in the coffin before fan-favorite Colt Jonathan Taylor gets dealt for draft capital, and, to be frank, this may be (should be?) the last game Shane Steichen ever coaches for the Indianapolis Colts.
No. 2: Defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo
If the failure to score points wasn't indictment enough on the coaching staff, the defensive failures somehow surpassed the offensive ineptitude. Yes, DeForest Buckner is gone, and the Jaguars are a good team, but an NFL regime fighting to keep their jobs can't let up 42 points and think that's good enough.
Anarumo has been a much-maligned coach even when the team was cruising through the first eight weeks of the 2025 season. Now that they're officially 2-6 and the embarrassment of the league, it's time for Anarumo to bid the city adieu.
There were calls from fans that Anarumo should have been canned after the 2025 season, and now that the 2026 season has gone just about as terribly as it possibly could have, it should finally be time to move on. There's been an amalgamation of disasters throughout the Colts organization, and Anarumo has done nothing to combat them.
No. 3: Quarterback Daniel Jones
There's been nary a week where the Colts have lost that Daniel Jones hasn't been in the top 5 of the biggest reasons why they couldn't win. His play was already showing signs of falling off before his Achilles tear in 2025, and post-Achilles, he's regressed to being nearly unplayable.
Late in the first half, the Colts got an interception off of Trevor Lawrence in the red zone, only 20 yards from the end zone. At this point, it was 21-0, still a walloping lead, but one that was theoretically possible to climb back from. Daniel Jones proceeded to immediately throw an 80-yard pick-six to give the Jaguars a 28-0 lead before halftime.
His level of ineptitude was mind-boggling in Week 8, culminating in a stat line of 144 yards, one touchdown, and two interceptions. Backup QB Anthony Richardson had been lambasted in the past almost as much as Daniel Jones has, but at least he provides an athletic upside Jones doesn't have.
He's young, and despite all of the doubts about his level of play, he's posted a record of 8-7 as a Colts starter.
This was disastrous enough of an effort for Daniel Jones that the previously unthinkable might have to come to fruition. Anthony Richardson has a real argument for being the man the Colts should start at QB going forward.
No. 4: CB Sauce Gardner
It wouldn't be hyperbole to say that the Sauce Gardner trade could be what will hurt the Colts the most in the near future. Without the disastrous trade for him at the deadline in 2025, the Colts would have had a first-round selection in the 2026 draft and would have control of what looks to be a very high selection in the loaded 2027 draft.
Instead, they have Sauce Gardner as the crown jewel of a defense that just gave up 42 points. Sauce is a good player, easily one of the better cornerbacks in the league.
But with Adonai Mitchell having just put up two fewer yards for the Jets than Daniel Jones did for the Colts (142 receiving yards and a touchdown), and having forked over an additional two first-round picks to employ Gardner's services, the corner has been nothing but an unmitigated disaster of an acquisition for Indy.
He was a non-factor against Jacksonville in stopping Lawrence and company's passing attack. The Colts paid top dollar for a premier cornerback to put them over the top as a contender. Instead, they forked over a king's ransom for a very good cornerback who's often injured on a 2-6 bottom-feeder.
It's going to be a long and painful road back to relevance for the Indianapolis Colts, but this was the type of disastrous loss that should be the catalyst for wholesale organization-sweeping changes.
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