The Indianapolis Colts ended a disappointing 2024 season with an 8-9 record. And while they are certainly hoping to reverse their misfortunes and perhaps win the AFC South in 2025, they might want to start by winning the first game. The Colts haven’t won a season-opening game since 2013, when they beat the Oakland Raiders 21-17 in Andrew Luck’s second NFL season. That’s a long time.
This year, the Colts open the season against the Miami Dolphins and they would be wise to start the season in a way that they haven’t for the last 11 years.
Gennaro Filice of NFL.com makes this note as he breaks down the AFC South schedule.
“Indianapolis hasn’t won its season opener since 2013, easily the longest active streak in the league,” Filice writes. “Can the Colts snap this ignominious run against the Dolphins? Miami has won its last four openers, though the Fins lost a 16-10 rock fight at Lucas Oil Stadium last October, when Tua Tagovailoa was on injured reserve.”
No other NFL team currently has a streak longer than three seasons without winning Week 1. This is not a record that the Colts – nor any NFL team – would like to hold.
Problem isn’t just quarterback related
It would be easy to point the Colts’ quarterback situation as a big reason for the opening-day losing streak, but that wouldn’t be looking at the entire picture. In recent years, the Colts seem to be paying the proverbial NFL piper for their extreme good fortune after seamlessly going from Peyton Manning to Andrew Luck. Manning was at the helm from 1998-2011 (he missed all of 2011 with a neck injury, but didn’t sign with the Denver Broncos until 2012). Luck took over from 2012 to 2018 when he retired prematurely (Luck also missed an entire season in 2017 with an injured shoulder).
It is extremely rare that a team goes from one Hall of Famer right to another guy who would have been a HoF’er if he didn’t hang them up early (The Green Bay Packers come to mind as they transitioned from Brett Favre to Aaron Rodgers spanning 1992-2022).
The Manning and Luck years covered 20 years, sent them to two Super Bowls (won one of them in 2006) and saw them reach the AFC Championship game four times (2003, 2006, 2009, 2014). So while that’s a lot of winning with two great quarterbacks, the pendulum in sports does tend to come back in the other direction at some point. And, for the Colts, that point started in 2019 when they turned to Jacoby Brissett as their starting quarterback.
And, while the Colts have yet to solve the quarterback problem since Luck announced his retirement following the 2018 season, the opening-day losing streak extends way back deep into Luck’s career, so it’s not just a signal caller problem.
A good place to start is probably the defense. Since 2014, the Colts have given up an average of 20.8+ points per game every season except 2017…the one year Luck missed, and the defense still stunk that year. In opening games during that time, the defense has given up a whopping average of 30.6 points per game. You aren’t going to win too many games that way in the NFL.
The opening-day losing streak also includes a bit of bad fortune. In 2022, with an aging Matt Ryan at the helm, the Colts tied the Houston Texans 20-20. In Brissett’s first Week 1 start for the Colts in 2019 (he played the bulk of the season in 2017, but Scott Tolzien was the starter in the first game), they lost 30-24 in overtime to the Los Angeles Chargers. So, a small break here or there and we’re not having this conversation about a winless streak.
Colts haven’t won the division in 10 years
The Colts string of winless Week 1’s is certainly cause for concern. Especially because they’ve started eight (!) different quarterbacks in that time, including Luck, Tolzien, Brissett, Philip Rivers, Carson Wentz, Matt Ryan, Gardner Minshew and Anthony Richardson.
This instability at the most important position explains part of the reason they’ve been so poor to start the year, but, it’s also been 10 years since they’ve won the AFC South. So, these season openers have been a pretty good barometer for end-of-season outcomes.
“Will the divisional dry spell ever end?,” Filice continues. “The Colts have the longest division title drought in the AFC South at 10 years, but they could control their own destiny deep into this season’s race, with four of their final six games against the Texans (who’ve claimed the last two South titles) and Jaguars (who wore the crown before Houston). In 2024, Indy swept Tennessee, split a pair of three-point outcomes with Jacksonville and lost two games to Houston by a combined five points.”
The Colts open the season against the Dolphins on September 7th at home. This game would be a great place to start if the Colts are hoping to end their division title drought. Especially when Week 1 has been a pretty good indicator of how the season will end.
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