Colts’ fire sale can help with impending QB problem, but it won’t be easy

This week, the Indianapolis Colts have traded two of former GM Chris Ballard’s biggest acquisitions during his time with the team, Quenton Nelson and DeForest Buckner. More players soon could be sent packing.

What follows is anyone’s guess, but the road eventually must lead to where Ballard struggled to: closer to quarterback salvation.

The franchise has a lot to figure out in the next six or so months, and only limited resources with which to do so.

Head coach Shane Steichen, 2-5 this season and 27-31 overall, could be fighting for his job – and now with less talent at hand.

Interim GM Ed Dodds, who replaced the fired Ballard, has a very short window to prove he’s the man for the full-time job.

And the quarterback problem isn’t going away.

That’s in addition to plugging the various roster holes, which have only increased this week. Doing so without a first-round choice in 2027 only ups the degree of difficulty. The Colts could hit absolute grand slams with their head coach and GM decisions, and they’d still find themselves in a tough QB spot next spring.

Let’s dive into what the Colts have now, their limitations for upgrading the position and what the most realistic solutions might be.

Are any Colts QBs part of the future?

Daniel Jones is the starter now, as Steichen has stuck with him in spite of his 2026 struggles, but Jones does not appear to be a long-term solution right now. There was hope after his strong play last season, but Jones has been turning the ball over at an alarming rate coming off an Achilles injury that ended last season.

If he’s still on the roster next March, Jones would be owed another $10 million guaranteed and a $4 million roster bonus. Keeping him, especially with that kicker, just doesn’t equate right now.

The Colts drafted Anthony Richardson fourth overall in 2023, but he’s taken only about a dozen regular-season snaps since his final start in the 2024 campaign. The way the Colts have acted the past few seasons, they’ve chalked him up to a sunk cost and merely stashing him in case of emergency. Richardson is a free agent next spring, and it would be a surprise to see him back as well.

Riley Leonard is the only realistic option on the roster now to stick around. He had a few intriguing moments last season, including the Week 18 start at Houston, that kept him with the Colts. If Jones keeps stumbling, they could turn to him this season down the stretch.

But how solid an asset is Howard? The Colts likely need more game film to decide, but there’s a ceiling right now to the former sixth-round pick’s potential. Keep in mind that the Colts bypassed Leonard at first last season for signing Philip Rivers, who was four years removed from his last game, before giving him a meaningless-game shot.

In short, there’s not a whole lot to count on. Expect a largely – and perhaps entirely – new QB room in 2027.

Most likely route to finding a 2027 starter

Free agency is a very limited route to finding a starting quarterback because few teams will allow high-quality options to simply walk unimpeded in free agency. Sam Darnold situations do occur every few years, but they’re not terribly common events all told.

Point being: The Colts have to understand that any QB options they might consider as unrestricted free agents almost always come with warts.

Deshaun Watson is a perfect example. Even if he plays acceptably well for the remainder of the season with the Browns, signing him as a free agent – yes, he finally hits the market again – comes with a ton of baggage and likely wouldn’t inspire the fanbase.

Justin Fields isn’t on the Darnold spectrum yet, even if he’s a highly paid backup with 53 career starts. The same probably applies to the likes of Davis Mills and Jarrett Stidham.

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The one possibly intriguing option among the free agents to-be is likely the 49ers’ Mac Jones. He’s started 53 games, has marinated in the 49ers’ system for a few years and stepped in readily for an injured Brock Purdy a year ago. The Jones likelihood only increases if the Colts consider any 49ers assistants (Klay Kubiak, perhaps?) as a head-coaching candidate. 

Otherwise, the Colts would be shopping on some familiar streets with some of the veteran options who’ll be available, including Jacoby Brissett, Kirk Cousins and Marcus Mariota. Those aren’t bad options if the Colts can pair them with a young QB and sell the veteran on a bridge-QB role for 2027.

Can the Colts find QB help in the 2027 draft?

This leads us to the other elephant in the room. The 2027 NFL Draft, once pegged as a possibly generational class at quarterback, now looks tepid in some respects. There are some quality prospects in the 2027 mix now, but the class as a whole has not taken off as hoped.

The Colts lack their 2027 first-round pick from the Sauce Gardner trade, and even after the Nelson and Buckner trades, they still only have one guaranteed top-64 selection to their names currently. The extra mid-round selections could allow a trade-up situation from high in Round 2, assuming the Colts finish with a losing record, but it still would be a heavier lift to get into the first round.

For years, the late first- to early second-round range was a wasteland for quarterbacks, but in the past decade it has produced Lamar Jackson, Jordan Love, Tyler Shough and Jaxson Dart. It has also given us Will Levis and Drew Lock. But on the whole, you’d say any draft range that theoretically produces a better-than-50% ROI has to be considered pretty fertile grounds.

Even if next year’s class isn’t what we had hoped, there still could be some options who project in a similar range.

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One is Oregon’s Dante Moore. He might have been the No. 2 overall pick had he come out a year ago, but Moore’s slower start this season and a season-ending concussion have his draft stock hanging in the void a bit. It’s possible he could slide and be within range of where the Colts end up picking.

Miami’s Darian Mensah might be trending toward a first-round landing spot, but that’s not guaranteed yet. USC’s Jayden Maiava, who is out of eligibility after this season, will be in the upcoming class, and he’s played well so far this season; his range has yet to crystallize, but he’s another who might not be far out of reach. 

There could be other candidates, including Notre Dame’s C.J. Carr, Missouri’s Austin Simmons and Ohio State’s Julian Sayin, but all of them will have options to return to school. The wild card might be South Carolina’s LaNorris Sellers, but as a very toolsy but also flawed prospect, Sellers might hit a little too optically close to the Richardson mark to be the preferred choice.

The answer to our original question is probably a soft “yes.” The Colts can find someone with some potential upside, but it might require a mix of luck and aggression come draft time. The outlook at this point is far from dim, but it’s also not wholly inspiring.

Best guess right now is that the Colts – whoever is running them in three months – will opt to pair a veteran free agent with Leonard and a draft prospect who ranks somewhere between QB3 and QB6 on most consensus boards.

Is it an exciting plan? Maybe not, but given the Colts’ situation and the deep rebuild they’re facing, it probably could be worse.