With the NFL Schedule soon to release, the Indianapolis Colts have three opponents in 2023 that they should face in a primetime game.
On Thursday, May 11, the NFL will release the 2023 NFL Schedule. Every team already knows which opponents they are facing, however, they don’t know when or at what time. That means no one knows what games will be in primetime or when the marquee matchups will be.
The Indianapolis Colts, coming off a 4-12-1 season, likely won’t have many primetime games. After an impressive 2021 season the Colts were rewarded with four primetime games in 2022, but they fumbled their year in the spotlight. Now, Indy will have to prove it deserves the big stage once again.
Although it’s unlikely that Indianapolis will have multiple primetime games (it’d be lucky to have one), there are a few opponents on Indy’s 2023 schedule with built-in storylines that can make for a good primetime matchup. Let’s take a look at three games that are deserving of a primetime slot.
3. Colts vs. Raiders: Vegas seeks revenge
Alright, it’s rare that people want to see teams that had a combined 10-23-1 record in the previous season face off against each other in primetime, but there’s some merit to wanting to see this matchup under the lights. Yes, both the Colts and the Las Vegas Raiders were extremely underwhelming last season, but their matchup from last year was entertaining, and one of the most talked about games of the season.
It was the first game of Jeff Saturday’s NFL head-coaching career, and simultaneously the game that made the Raiders hit rock bottom and brought Josh McDaniels’ head-coaching career into question. The Colts went on the road to Vegas, when everything was going wrong for Indy, and pulled off an upset over the Raiders.
The game made Las Vegas the laughingstock of the NFL. The Raiders had got beaten by an interim head coach that was on ESPN as an analyst a week prior, tweeting about how bad the Raiders were. Las Vegas should surely want some revenge.
This is by no means a Sunday Night Football game, but it could be a comical matchup for a Thursday or Monday night game.
2. Colts vs. Texans: A battle of rookies
Being in the AFC South, Indianapolis will play the Houston Texans twice. One of those games should be in primetime. It has all the makings of an entertaining Thursday Night Football game. Two first-year head coaches with rookie quarterbacks, and several promising young players, clashing as they try to turn their franchises around.
For the Texans, they are coming off a 3-13-1 season, but they hired defensive guru DeMeco Ryans to be the team’s head coach. In the draft, Houston gave Ryans quarterback CJ Stroud with the No. 2 pick and edge rusher Will Anderson with the No. 3 pick. That’s in addition to all of the other young players that Houston drafted this year and last year.
The Colts, on the other hand, hired Shane Steichen, an offensive guru that will help get their offense rolling. Indianapolis gave Steichen a dynamic quarterback in Anthony Richardson, drafting him with the No. 4 pick. Adding Richardson to a roster with several other young talented players makes Indy’s future really bright.
So there’s an offensive first-year head coach versus a defensive first-year head coach, two talented rookie quarterbacks drafted in the top five of the draft, and young promising rosters. This could be the start of competitive rivalry that goes on for a decade; the beginning should be in a primetime game.
As a bonus to the storylines, the two matchups between these teams last season were bonkers. In Week 1, they played go a 20-20 tie, thanks to a fourth-quarter surge from the Colts, and in Week 18, Houston sacrificed the No. 1 pick by winning a 32-31 thriller. If this season’s games have any chance of being like those two, at least one should be in primetime.
1. Colts at Panthers: Rookies and revenge
This game has already been named as one of the top revenge games of the 2023 season. Indianapolis will hit the road to take on Frank Reich and the Carolina Panthers. The 2023 season will be Reich’s first time as the head coach of a team other than the Colts, and he’ll have the opportunity to beat the team that fired him less than a year ago.
Frank Reich doesn’t seem like a really vengeful guy, but the media will certainly play up the fact that he can stick it to the Colts by beating them in his first game against the franchise. Of course, Indianapolis will have the responsibility of not letting that happen.
In addition to Frank Reich’s revenge storyline, this game will also presumably be between two first-round rookie quarterbacks. Bryce Young, who was drafted first overall, will likely be under center for the Panthers and Anthony Richardson is expected be at quarterback for the Colts.
Just like Richardson and Stroud in the Colts vs. Texans matchup, why not lay the foundation for the meeting of two young quarterbacks that have a chance to dominate the next era of the NFL? If Indianapolis is going to get at least one primetime game, the meeting against the Panthers makes a lot of sense.
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