After Daniel Jones’ Breakout Season Ends with Torn Achilles, What’s Next For The Colts?

Daniel Jones’ resurgent 2025 season with the Indianapolis Colts ended in the harshest way possible: a torn right Achilles in Sunday’s 36–19 loss to the Jaguars. The 28-year-old, who’d signed a one-year, $14 million deal. He threw for just over 3,100 yards with 19 touchdowns against 8 interceptions while even playing through a fractured fibula.

Now everything gets messy. Standard recovery timelines for an Achilles rupture run roughly 6–12 months, and even with modern procedures, players often need a full year before they truly look like themselves again.

For the Colts, it’s brutal déjà vu. Since Andrew Luck retired, they’ve cycled through a parade of short-term answers at quarterback, hoping Jones might finally stabilize the position. Instead, they’re back in the same cycle and they don’t even have an obvious long-term fix, with Anthony Richardson battling his own durability questions and rookie Riley Leonard pushed into action sooner than planned.

Jones’ market is just as uncertain. Kirk Cousins landed a four-year, $180 million deal with $100 million guaranteed from Atlanta only months after his own Achilles tear. But that contract is already being framed as a cautionary tale, tying up cap space for a team still unsure what will happen post-injury.

So instead of negotiating security and term, Jones and the Colts are staring at risk management: short deals, heavy protections, and contingency plans. What once looked like a clean solution at the game’s most important position has turned into yet another offseason question mark in Indianapolis.

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Article by Ed Middlecoff