Colts X factors: Which players are the keys to success this season?

INDIANAPOLIS — For the first time in a long time, the Colts know they have a formula that can work.

An injury-fueled seven-game skid left Indianapolis on the outside of the playoff picture, the same spot the Colts have been for five consecutive seasons now.

The difference is the way the 2025 season began. Indianapolis spent the first half of the season playing like an AFC contender behind a breakout campaign from Daniel Jones and the underrated brilliance of Jonathan Taylor. Unable to shake the promise of that start, Carlie Irsay-Gordon decided to bring back general manager Chris Ballard and head coach Shane Steichen, hoping to finish what they’d started while placing the added emphasis of a higher sense of urgency on 2026.

When a healthy Jones was at the helm, the Indianapolis offense carried the Colts, getting just enough help from the defense. If Jones can stay healthy this season, the Colts are planning to rely on that offense again, hoping Lou Anarumo will have more answers defensively despite persistent questions surrounding the pass rush.

Or the defense could surprise and take a step forward, but only if a couple of players step up. With that in mind, here’s a look at six players who will be critical for Indianapolis this season.  

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Every NFL starting quarterback has the potential to be an X-factor. No position in sports carries more weight.

But Jones is an even bigger X-factor because of how the Colts played once injuries hit in 2025. When Jones was healthy, the Colts were the NFL’s most efficient offense, a pick-your-poison arsenal that could put up points against just about anybody. When he got hurt, first by fracturing his fibula and then tearing his right Achilles tendon, the Indianapolis offense couldn’t replicate the same efficiency.

Indianapolis hopes it will have a healthy Anthony Richardson available to back up Jones after losing him to a freak accident halfway through the 2025 season, but the reality is it’s not likely the Colts can replicate the same efficient, quick-strike passing game with somebody other than Jones at the helm.

Jones needs to stay healthy. The veteran quarterback has played a full season only once in his seven NFL seasons, and although the Colts have deployed him mostly as a pocket passer rather than the run-first option he was in New York, the 2025 season proves that a team can’t truly protect its quarterback from all harm. Indianapolis needs Jones to stay in the lineup.

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When the Colts signed Pierce to a four-year, $114 million extension this offseason, there were a lot of casual observers who wondered how a wide receiver who has never caught more than 47 passes could command that kind of contract.

The market sets the contract, and the market coveted what Pierce provides the Indianapolis offense.

For the better part of a decade, NFL defenses have increasingly designed with one goal in mind: Taking away the big passing play.

Pierce has proven he’s the kind of weapon that even those defenses can’t stop. Fast, big and a remarkable presence in the air, Pierce has averaged more than 20 yards per catch the last two seasons, a number that hasn’t been put up by a top target since DeSean Jackson roamed NFL secondaries. Pierce’s big plays are critical to Steichen’s offensive scheme, not only because explosive plays put points on the board but because of what the threat of Pierce does to a defense. When an offense has a weapon like Pierce, teams have to play their safeties back, leaving plenty of room underneath for tight end Tyler Warren, slot receiver Josh Downs and outside receiver Keenan Allen.

From that perspective, Pierce is the ultimate X-factor for defensive coordinators, but he’s an X-factor for the Colts this season because he’s coming off an offseason ankle surgery that lingered deep into training camp. If Pierce cannot be the player who has taken the top off every defense, no matter how high the coordinator placed it, things get harder for the rest of the offense.

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Bortolini was one of the keys to Taylor’s brilliant start last season, firing off the ball to the second level to pick off linebackers and create running lanes for Taylor beyond the line of scrimmage.

When NFL teams started rushing the linebackers to the line of scrimmage, flooding the line with bodies, they made it difficult for Bortolini to make those blocks.

The Indianapolis coaching staff has likely spent the offseason looking for solutions to the problem, knowing that Bortolini has the potential to be a Pro Bowl center if he has the space to make plays down the field. Ultimately, it might be up to offensive line coach Tony Sparano Jr., Steichen and the rest of the coaching staff more than anything Bortolini can do on his own, but the Colts need to find ways to get him out into space. When Bortolini was on the move last season, Taylor was nearly unstoppable.

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Latu shouldn’t have to carry so much responsibility.

A dynamic edge presence on the other side of the defensive line could have the same effect. But the Colts came up short in their pursuit of Trey Hendrickson during free agency, and although Indianapolis hopes a breakout player emerges from a group that includes 2025 second-rounder Jaylahn Tuimoloau and a pair of rookies, George Gumbs Jr. and Caden Curry, it’s impossible to predict which one might be a candidate at this point in their careers.

That puts the pressure back on Latu. Veteran defensive Arden Key, who will start on the other side, is a professional pass rusher who has been productive throughout his career, but at the age of 30, it’s unlikely that Key will become the kind of difference-maker who can dictate matchups to the opponent on the other side of the ball.

Indianapolis needs Latu to emerge, not only as a solid starter but as a game-wrecker off the edge. While there have been flashes in the first two years of his career, the 2024 first-round pick hasn’t made the leap to stardom yet. If Latu, who had 8.5 sacks last season, could not only break into double-digits but routinely whip tackles off the line of scrimmage, the Colts defense could be much better than anybody expects.

On the other hand, if Latu isn’t able to make that quantum leap, Anarumo is likely going to have to get much more creative to put pressure on opposing quarterbacks.

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Allen was supposed to be the prize target of Ballard’s effort to remake the middle of the Indianapolis defense this offseason.

The Colts needed to get younger and faster up the middle. Even when Indianapolis had its terrifying tandem of Sauce Gardner and Charvarius Ward together against Kansas City in 2025, the Chiefs were able to keep the chains moving by simply attacking the middle of the field, putting stress on an aging pair of linebackers in Zaire Franklin and Germaine Pratt, as well as a young strong safety, Nick Cross, who was better in run support than he was making plays in coverage.

Enter Allen. Indianapolis used its first pick of the 2026 NFL Draft, a second-rounder, to take Allen out of Georgia, betting heavily on Allen’s experience, makeup and pure speed to get the middle linebacker the Colts need.

But the pick hasn’t gone according to plan so far. Allen missed the first two days of training camp with a calf injury that slowed his early progress, then missed nearly two weeks with a pulled hamstring, leaving the rookie with too little time to establish himself as a starter going forward. The Colts will open the season by using a committee at linebacker, an unusual approach made necessary by the lack of obvious starters, and hope that the cream rises to the top in the first couple of weeks.

A sudden ascendance by Allen could make all the difference. If the rookie can prove he’s what the Colts front office drafted him to be, it would allow Anarumo to play matchups around him, making life difficult on opposing quarterbacks because the rookie has the speed to cover ground. If Allen’s development continues to move slowly, it’s unclear if the Colts have the kind of player who can be left on the field on every snap.

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The Colts have long believed that Walley is ticketed for stardom.

Drafted in the third round out of Minnesota a year ago, Walley was headed for a spot in the starting lineup before tearing his ACL, forcing Indianapolis into a scramble mode for a starter opposite Ward that didn’t end until the Colts paid a hefty price (two first-round picks and wide receiver Adonai Mitchell) for Gardner.

Walley, who is taking over for a departed Kenny Moore II in the slot, might hold the key to the entire secondary. If Walley is as good as the Colts believe he can be, Anarumo can play man-to-man coverage outside, freeing Anarumo to play the role of mad scientist and send pressures from all over the field to make life difficult on quarterbacks.

If Walley is as good as the Colts believe he can be, there are other implications. Ward’s durability remains a question after three concussions torpedoed his first season in Indianapolis and a lingering back injury cost the veteran time during training camp. When he was out of the lineup, Walley shifted to the outside and held up well in coverage against Atlanta star Drake London, a sign that he may be able to handle both roles. If Walley can be a star both on the inside and outside, an injury to Ward wouldn’t be as back-breaking as it was in 2025; the Colts like how former Bengals starter Cam Taylor-Britt looks in the nickel role as the team’s fourth cornerback.

This Colts defense is built around its secondary.

If Walley can live up to expectations, it opens a world of possibilities for Indianapolis as a whole.

Joel A. Erickson and Nathan Brown cover the Coltsall season. Get more coverage on IndyStarTV and with the Colts Insider newsletter.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Colts X factors: Which players are the keys to success this season?

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