Indianapolis Colts ceiling and floor for 2023

With the regular season kicking off Thursday, we're dusting off our earlier guides on the ceilings and floors of each team in the NFL.

Here's what we said about Indianapolis back in June. Let's examine what's changed:

Ceiling: 4-13 (originally 9-8) 

What a difference 10 weeks makes. Before the Jonathan Taylor debacle, an argument could have easily been made that the Colts could potentially be a playoff bubble team in 2023 — dual-threat quarterback Anthony Richardson is a surefire upgrade over the QB carousel Indy had last year, the receiving core is just as good, if not better than it was in 2022, and the defense should be improved after the moves made during free agency and the draft.

But with Taylor out the first four weeks of the season (against three teams that ranked in the top 13 in run defense last year), and a good chance he might not even play for the Colts this year at all, Richardson went from dark-horse Offensive Rookie of the Year candidate to likely running for his life without an effective ground game to help take the pressure off.

A win over Houston is doable, and getting at least one win in four tries against Jacksonville and Tennessee could certainly happen, but aside from that, there are only three other winnable games by my count on their schedule (Rams, Buccaneers, Falcons).

Floor: 3-14 (originally 3-14)

The Colts haven’t won fewer than three games since 2011. And still, that team had Curtis Painter and Dan Orlovsky splitting reps at QB and was just eight points away from finishing 4-12 instead of 2-14.

So, three wins should definitely be doable with Richardson running the show and a schedule that features Houston twice, Tennessee twice, Los Angeles (Rams), New Orleans, Carolina, Tampa Bay, Atlanta and Las Vegas. It’s hard to see the Colts losing more than 14 of 17.