2026 Pre-Season Game Thread (Consolidated)
 

o


(vs. ATLANTA FALCONS) llllllll, [August 22nd]



(vs. DETROIT LIONS) llllllllllllllllll [August 29th]


o

This reminds me of a Television episode titled “Where Is Everybody;” a man awakens to find himself alone, in a deserted town, with the feeling he’s being watched.

So, I thought of Rod Serling intoning “You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension—a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. You're moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. You've just crossed over into the Twilight Zone.”

It was going on 01:30 for me to catch this game.

Additionally, I did not see a stable feed woth pirating, though I did not look too hard, so either way, my need for my beauty sleep took over.

Go Klotz!!!!:)

The Riley Leonard show is about to start!

Possibly the series finale.

:D

I know it's just a preseason game, but if our starters don't stay healthy we could be in for a LONG season. Our backups are a complete shit show out there.

I think the Riley is awesome gang can stfu now

This is embarrassing. I know it’s preseason but the Falcons quarterbacks have one incompletion among them. Yeeesh.

I think the AR is awesome group may want to stfu as well….this team only has one injury prone QB for 2026, if he goes down we’re done!

o


Richardson took what would have been a 5-yard sack for most quarterbacks, and turned it into a 4-yard gain ...... woo hoo.

o

o


Spencer Shrader made 2 FG attempts of 53 yards and 48 yards.

Blake Grupe missed 1 FG attempt of 36 yards.



In the exhibition game against the Patriots, Spencer Shrader made 2 FG attempts of 61 yards and 46 yards.

In the exhibition game against the Patriots, Blake Grupe missed 1 FG attempts of 61 yards.



I have a feeling that Grupe is feeling pretty bad right about now.

o

Not sure WTF you can take from that pile of shit. I can only hope that the real work was done in joint practices. Does look like Shrader will win the placekicker job. Horseshit line play makes it impossible to judge any skill position on offense.

o


1) l It's probably a good thing that the Colts decided to sign Daniel Jones for the next 2 seasons.

2) l I hear that they make a really good Orange Julius in one of the upper deck concession stands.

o

Looks like a 6-7 win team to me. A team that CAN be good if everything goes perfect, everyone stays healthy, and they get some luck.

Unfortunately, that’s most likely not going to happen. Not with a quarterback who has only played 16 games once in 7 seasons. Not with a running back who has been one of the most overworked players in the league for several years. And if either of those guys goes down, it’s basically over because there is zero depth behind them.

I’m sure Kray will be along to paint a rosy picture of what COULD be but I’m just not buying it.

Players good enough to be signed by an NFL team should be capable of being coached to perform better than what we saw today! Anarumo should be ashamed to have put that garbage defense on the field today!

I am afraid we may be the confirmation that the ass heap that Cincy put on the field for several years on the defensive side of the game, is an Anarumo thing, not a talent thing. If so, well we will be a best case .500 team, and more than likely less than that, and the best thing about that, we start from complete scratch and rid ourselves of this era of bullshit we have been forced to stomach for essentially all of Chris Ballard's tenure.

By all accounts the Colts dominated the joint scrimmages. My take may be that ATL had, had enough, and played to win the game, while the Colts basically took the day off.

If we look like that with our 1's in there and not 2's & 3's I will be a little more worried. Do I think we are some burgeoning juggernaut? Hell no. I think we are a 8-10 win team. What we saw today is not what you're going to see in a few weeks. Lighten up Francis. Gloom and doom over a preseason game is a direct correlation to your mental ability to think, or not!

Are you watching ANY of these other PS games? Perhaps this Eagles Patriots game? Same scenario- scrubs sort of up and down the roster for both teams. You know what is different- players on these teams are executing, they look like competent football players who are coached to do this shit.

Our 2nd and 3rd level players, look absolutely fucking horrible.

The really sad part of the Colts 2026 season is watching us earn the #1 pick in the 2027 draft....

...and watch the Jets draft Arch Manning... :(

And what does that mean exactly? Did you ever watch the Peyton Manning era Colts get thrashed in every pre-season game?

Not to mention that when they played the Bengals in the final pre-season,up until a few years ago, the Bengals always played to win the game, while the Colts were evaluating individual performances of their young players.

In the Peyton era it always felt like it was just some guys out there scrapping for some very tail end of the roster spots in pre-season. I always felt in those days that we pretty much had a grasp on 95% of the roster until the final PS game. I remember trying to do the final team rosters and being pretty comfortable with a lot of the names being in the 2nd and in some cases 3rd level.

Now, fuck, man from what I've seen, there are guys that from what I have seen, they shouldn't even be on semi-pro teams out there and in a couple weeks, they are going to be a pulled hammy away from being a starter for this team. Some of these guys on the OL- holy shit they couldn't block me. Not only do a big chunk of these guys not look capable, but in many cases they look confused and not prepared. Several of the AR passes late- there were guys that weren't even looking back for the ball as it was thrown their way. Like he was throwing one route and they were running another. Him, them? Not sure I care because at some point that's a coaching flaw more than a player issue.

I'm probably as down on this team and especially the management as anyone. This game, if anything, makes me feel fine. It was obviously used to evaluate the end of the roster. Nobody, nobody in this league wins with that, but ithey can and do lose games from the bottom of the roster. The evaluation of the first/second stringers happened in the joint practice where you can put your players in exactly the situation you want to see them handle. And a ton more of them. Good teams do this all the time and nobody gives a shit. We have sucked for so long that a game like this makes us 'feel' like it is going down the tubes. Not true, not yet. If we play like this when it counts, Ill buy the first pitchfork. We wont.

While it's true that you can't put much stock in the outcome of preseason games there can still be some concerns and red flags pop up. IMO it's definitely concerning that our 2s and 3s look like complete dogshit against other teams' 2s and 3s, which probably means that our depth across the board is god awful. So when we get a few injuries to our 1s (and we will) then we're probably going to be in deep shit.

Things I liked about the game
 

Top 10 things to like about the game

1)

Sorry. I sent this turd out to be bronzed, but it hasn’t come back yet.

I disagree. Everyone on the field was a second or third string. Put one or two of them in the middle of first stringers and my guess is they can pretty much hold their own. Start putting 4 or 5 on the field and you have issues. Nobody in this league has the depth to replace the whole team. Maybe our depth does suck (I happen to think it does) but I don't think this game proves that quit yet.

I think the first 2 games pretty much prove it. Think about this for a minute. The guys that are competing for a 2nd string role are playing for a chance to earn ~$1.5M in a year, vs being in the public sector at say $70K. Man, that's a 20X multiplier.

To see what we have seen already, the disparity between what our 2nd and 3rd tier looks like vs peers, man they look fucking dreadful.

So the word is our 1st team has looked good in controlled scrimmages, that's good. But, and this is sooooooo easily glossed over by Colts fans for whatever reason--- and LAST fucking year is about the greatest proof you could ever have... in about 60 days, some of those 1st stringers are going to be on the training table! Last year we lost Danny Dimes on offense and Buck on defense, and the entire team collapsed (I know, corners, I know, OL, I know...). From what I have seen so far, the ability to survive any type of first line fall off, is not even close to being in place.

Again, for those arguing the poor play isn't that big of a deal, that we are taking it easy, that the Falcons came to play after not playing well in practices this week. Again, again these guys are playing to basically get over a million dollars in earnings for the next 9 months, and almost to a man, the guy opposite them on the other team, looks a hell of a lot more committed to earning that cool million vs the mehhh $75K insurance sales job.

To me, looks like Ballard has as usual, not stocked the shelves with survivable talent and it doesn't look like Steichen and co, spend a fucking minute of time developing any of the non-top-shelf players.

The lowest of the low played in this game.

https://www.colts.com/news/5-colts-t...eseason-week-2

The following players did not participate in Saturday's game, either due to injury or rest after two days of physical, competitive joint practices with the Atlanta Falcons: QB Daniel Jones, RB Jonathan Taylor, RB DJ Giddens, RB Ulysses Bentley IV, WR Alec Pierce, WR Josh Downs, WR Ashton Dulin, WR Keenan Allen, WR Anthony Gould, TE Tyler Warren, TE Mo Alie-Cox, TE Drew Ogletree, TE Will Mallory, T Bernhard Raimann, T Jalen Travis, T Luke Tenuta, T Nolan Rucci, G Quenton Nelson, G Matt Goncalves, G Jalen Farmer, C Tanor Bortolini, DE Laiatu Latu, DE Arden Key, DT DeForest Buckner, DT Grover Stewart, LB Akeem Davis-Gaither, CB Sauce Gardner, CB Charvarius Ward Sr., CB Justin Walley, S AJ Haulcy, S Cam Bynum.

That would be hilarious, since Arch is not HIM.

Valid point to a degree, but still concerning since ATL played 0 starters as well and their backups collectively flat out embarrassed ours. Same w/ the Cheats, although the score didn't show this b/c they kept shooting themselves in the foot w/ stupid offensive penalties.

Also, it depends on who goes down and which backups are mixed it. For example if Blackmon somehow ends up making the team and getting on the field then we're fucked, b/c he couldn't cover me right now much less an NFL WR.

SleeperColts

@SleeperColts
·
8h
Shane Steichen on the Colts’ plan for Saturday’s preseason finale vs. Detroit:

“The starters are going to play probably about a series or two… the only guys not playing for sure are Daniel and JT… AR is going to start”




https://x.com/SleeperColts/status/20...439569830?s=20

Shouldn't the coaches, the Irsay girls, and Ballard come out before the Detroit game and say, we really aren't going to try to be competitive in the Detroit game, we are more interested in assessing how a mixture of the 2nd and 3rd stringers play in a come from behind scenario! That way if they play like crap all the not really trying to be competitive crap doesn't look like just an excuse!:D

Are we really going to tie our shorts in a knot because Shane Steichen wants to use the preseason to assess the talent on his roster?

Let’s be clear. Winning in the preseason counts for nothing, zip, zilch, zero, nada, niete. You don’t judge a coach by how well their scrubs match up against Atlanta’s scrubs. It’s akin to firing Rick Carlisle because the Pacers allow a 6’2” Croatian Center for the Hawks to notch a double double in a 40 point Summer League loss to Atlanta.

In a little more than 24 hours, the Colts have to cut down to 53 players. Right now, they’re trying to figure out who’s better, Richardson or Leonard, Grupe or Shrader? They’re sorting out the bottom of the roster, weighing the skills of some undrafted free agent Linebacker vs a four year vet trying to hang around for another year.

That doesn’t seem important now, but when the witch of November comes calling and injures mount, a team’s fate hinges on judgments made in training camp.

Steichen can be forgiven for not caring about beating the Lions in a meaningless game?

Totally missed the point which really doesn't surprise me at all! :D

How is it, after these players have played football for their entire lives and played in dozens to hundreds of football games and have had defensive coaches telling them the entire time to have someone hold the corner so cut-back runs cannot succeed that we seem to have cut-back runs succeed ALL THE TIME!!!!:mad:

Can’t lie… Richardson looks good out there

He's made a couple of really good throws!

Even Rick Venturi is getting sick of watching our backups being unable to successfully match up to other teams 2s and 3s