Daniel Jones's injury couldn't have come at a worse time for the player. Had he torn his Achilles tendon in Week 8 after he had an extremely hot start for the Indianapolis Colts, he would have had a better chance at coming by early in 2026 and playing well again. Now, he might miss next season.
This will likely cost him a bunch of money. A team shouldn't sign him to a lucrative one-year deal if he isn't going to play. Doing so would probably be only to build up goodwill with the player in hopes he re-signs with the team after 2026.
What would be better is for a team to sign Jones to a two-year deal that is backloaded with incentives for 2027, the season where Jones should be back fully, and hopefully, highly productive. Will the Indianapolis Colts be that team? Maybe. The Minnesota Vikings might be another team.
Indianapolis Colts and Minnesota Vikings might both be interested in Daniel Jones in the coming offseason
According to ESPN's Dan Graziano, there is a real chance that the Vikings, who have gotten inconsistent play from starter J.J. McCarthy this season (when he has been healthy enough to play), make a run at Jones in hopes that he might be better than McCarthy.
Graziano said, "Another is that it would make sense for (Jones) to go back to Minnesota, where he finished last season as Sam Darnold's backup, and rehab there with a staff that knows him and wanted to retain him but couldn't guarantee him the starting job this past offseason."
Of course, the same situation would exist if Jones signed with the Vikings again. Minnesota clearly wants McCarthy to work out well as QB1 because the team could have re-signed either Sam Darnold or Daniel Jones this offseason and couldn't or didn't. If Jones wants to sign with a team that believes he will be a good starter, that would be Indianapolis.
The Colts are also in no position not to bring back Jones on some kind of deal. The team doesn't have a first-round draft pick in the next two years, as general manager Chris Ballard traded them to the New York Jets to get cornerback Sauce Gardner at the trade deadline. Indy can't choose one of the more highly respected QBs in the draft in 2026 or 2027.
QB2 Anthony Richardson will hopefully be healthy enough to play in 2026, but he hasn't yet been good. He will be entering the final year of his rookie deal, too, so even he might not be a long-term option.
What the Indianapolis Colts don't want to do is to get into some kind of bidding war with the Minnesota Vikings for the services of Daniel Jones when the quarterback has had three seasons end early because of injury. The quality of Jones's play was also diminishing a bit in recent weeks.
Indianapolis has to be able to sign other impending free agents over the next two years as well, and Jones's next contract cannot make that impossible. Alec Pierce, Braden Smith, Michael Pittman, Quenton Nelson, Jonathan Taylor, and Josh Downs will all be free agents over the next two years.