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Indianapolis Colts Fantasy Outlook 2026

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By Sean Draper · Published September 18, 2026 · Last updated November 3, 2026 · Updated Tuesdays and Fridays through the season

Indianapolis is the cleanest backfield in football attached to the most confused receiver room in the division. Jonathan Taylor was the only Colt to record a carry in Week 1 — not the leading rusher, the only one — behind a line that FTN ranks fourth in the league. Meanwhile the man they paid $114 million to be the No. 1 receiver ranked 49th in the NFL in target share last season, and the man who ran 93.8% of the routes in the opener finished with four targets. Michael Pittman Jr. is a Steeler now, Keenan Allen is a Colt, and nobody in the building has settled who gets the ball. That gap between the settled thing and the unsettled thing is where every fantasy decision on this roster lives. Scoring on this page is 0.5 PPR, the site’s standard format.

Colts fantasy cheat sheet

Player	Pos	Where he’s going	Our verdict	Injury risk
Jonathan Taylor	RB	RB3–RB4, first round, ADP 5–8	Draft — a true bellcow with no handcuff in the building	Moderate (volume, and nobody behind him)
Tyler Warren	TE	TE4–TE5, ADP 49–86 depending on outlet	Draft — top-four tight end, and the touchdowns are coming	Out — groin, per our Oct. 27 feed pull
Josh Downs	WR	WR41–WR46, ADP 83–116	Draft — the route share says WR2, the price says WR4	Low
Alec Pierce	WR	WR37–WR43, ADP 56–96	Fade at cost — paid like a WR1, used like a deep threat	Elevated (on injured reserve with a heel injury after March ankle/heel surgery; expected back around midseason)
Daniel Jones	QB	QB23, ADP 145–197	Superflex only — and even there, wait	Elevated (Achilles tear, Week 14 of 2025)
Keenan Allen	WR	WR61–WR65, ADP 150–219	Bench flier — six targets in Week 1 at a 3.7-yard aDOT	Low — cleared the groin issue that cost him Week 5; see the legal note below
Seth McGowan	RB	Undrafted — waiver claim	Speculative handcuff only — zero NFL touches	Low
DJ Giddens	RB	Undrafted	Ignore — listed third, 26 career touches	Low
Mo Alie-Cox	TE	Undrafted	Ignore in single-TE formats	Low
Indianapolis D/ST	D/ST	Outside the top 20 in most rankings	Do not draft — matchup streaming at best	—

The one-line version: take Taylor in the first round without flinching, take Warren as a top-four tight end, take Downs two rounds before the room does, and let somebody else find out what Alec Pierce is worth.

The backfield: there is no committee, and that is the whole point

Most first-round running backs come with an asterisk attached to a change-of-pace back. Taylor does not. In Week 1 he took 19 carries for 98 yards and two touchdowns at 5.2 a carry, plus three catches on four targets for 22.1 fantasy points — and Fantasy Football Calculator noted afterwards that no other Indianapolis running back recorded a single carry. The depth chart behind him reads Seth McGowan, a 2026 seventh-round pick with no NFL touches, then DJ Giddens, who has 26 career touches. Footballguys spent the summer calling the lack of insurance behind him malpractice. For your purposes it is the opposite of a problem.

The line in front of him is the second half of the case. FTN ranks this offensive line fourth overall, with four returning starters over 900 snaps, three graded above 82.0, and the fifth-highest clean-pocket rate in the league at 72.9%. USA TODAY has them eighth. BetMGM cites them fourth in run-block grade and the offence fifth in rush-offence DVOA. The only change is at right tackle, where Jalen Travis replaces Braden Smith — who signed with Houston and is already on injured reserve there — after grading fourth among rookie tackles at 72.2 in four late starts.

The risk you are actually taking is not a committee, it is the 2025 shape. Taylor led the NFL in carries and total touchdowns, and he did it in two completely different halves: 27.0 PPR points a game and RB1 overall through Week 10, then 12.6 a game and RB23 from Week 12 on, per Fantasy Life. The team went 8–2 and then lost seven straight. If that back half is the real team, it is also the real Taylor.

Our verdict: draft him at his price and do not overthink the collapse. The second-half version of 2025 was a team whose quarterback tore his Achilles in Week 14. That quarterback is back. A bellcow with no backup behind a top-eight line is the closest thing to a guaranteed 300-touch season in this draft class, and 300 touches is what wins a 0.5 PPR league.

Target share: the routes and the money point at different men

Indianapolis handed Alec Pierce a four-year, $114 million extension and then watched him have ankle and heel surgery in late March, miss the entire offseason programme, and come off the physically-unable-to-perform list on the Friday before the last preseason game. He played 32 of 54 snaps in the opener on an explicit snap count, and head coach Shane Steichen would only say “we’ll see how the game goes” about the workload. He is a fine player: he led the NFL at 21.3 yards per reception last season on 47 catches for 1,003 yards. He also ranked 49th in the league in target share, which is the number that decides fantasy scoring.

	Josh Downs	Alec Pierce	Keenan Allen
Week 1 snaps	48	32 (59%)	36
Week 1 route participation	93.8% (32 of 34 dropbacks)	—	Six routes fewer than Downs
Week 1 line	2 rec, 37 yds (4 tgt)	4 rec, 61 yds (6 tgt)	6 rec, 32 yds (6 tgt)
Slot rate	78.8%	Perimeter	60.5% perimeter in 2025
2025 line	58 rec, 566 yds, 4 TD (88 tgt)	47 rec, 1,003 yds, 6 TD (84 tgt)	81 rec, 777 yds, 4 TD
Yards per route run	1.75 (41st)	Not published — see note	1.72
ADP	83–116	56–96	150–219
Our verdict	Draft	Fade at cost	Bench flier

Our verdict: Downs is the buy and Pierce is the fade. A receiver who runs 94% of the routes from the slot is going to get targets eventually; the four he saw in Week 1 came in a game his quarterback dropped back 34 times in a 41–23 loss, which is not a sample. Dan Johnson at DraftKings Network projects Downs at 90 to 100 targets and calls him a steal after pick 100. The structural argument against Pierce is simpler: deep-ball production is the most fragile kind there is, because it depends on protection, on play-action, and on a quarterback who can push the ball — and this quarterback is ten months removed from a torn Achilles. Pierce needs everything to go right. Downs needs volume, and volume is the thing this offence actually generates when it is behind, which the schedule below says will be often.

Where we differ from our own board. In Week 2 our live injury report told readers to “keep starting Pierce as Indianapolis’s No. 1 receiver” and filed Downs as a PPR flex, while our Week 2 rankings board had them the other way round, at Downs WR43 and Pierce WR44. Both could not be the lead. For the season, we are on the Downs side of our own disagreement, and we are naming it here rather than leaving two pages pointing in opposite directions. The weekly injury-desk call is about who starts on Sunday with a cleared hand; this is a call about who finishes the year with more targets.

Keenan Allen is the third piece and the one with a non-football variable. He signed a one-year deal worth up to $8.32 million, is listed as a starter, and led the team with six catches in Week 1 — at a 3.7-yard average depth of target, which is a checkdown role, not a fantasy one. He was also arrested in early September on misdemeanour charges of operating while intoxicated and OWI endangering a person, was formally charged, and had a September 16 court date. General manager Chris Ballard said “He’ll play, yes.” No league discipline has been announced, and the personal-conduct policy allows for it. We are not going to guess at an outcome; we are telling you the variable exists and that it is priced into a receiver going after pick 150 anyway.

Daniel Jones: ten months after the Achilles

Jones is the confirmed starter. Colts.com listed him first on the opening depth chart, Anthony Richardson Sr. is the backup, and the 2025 quarterback competition is over. What is not over is the recovery: he tore his Achilles in Week 14 of last season against Jacksonville, and Aaron Schatz’s DVOA projections explicitly apply a first-month penalty to Indianapolis because of it.

The reason anybody is interested is the first half of 2025, when Jones was QB5 in fantasy scoring through ten weeks with 15 passing and five rushing touchdowns. The reason we are not is the second half, and Week 1: 19-of-31 for 166 yards, one touchdown, one interception, in a game where his team gained 251 yards to Baltimore’s 506. Our Week 2 board had him at QB24, last on a 24-deep list, and called him a superflex option only. We agree with that entirely.

Our verdict: superflex only, and even there you can wait. At an Underdog ADP of 145 he is not expensive, and Fantasy Life projects 14.1 points a game. But a quarterback whose fantasy value came from five rushing touchdowns, coming off the one injury that most directly attacks push-off and scramble ability, is a bet with no cheap upside. Stream around him.

Tyler Warren: the target hog the touchdowns have not found yet

Warren led the Colts with 112 targets as a rookie, fifth-most all time among rookie tight ends, caught 76 for 812 yards, and saw four or more targets in every single game. He finished as a top-five tight end. He also scored four touchdowns on those 112 targets, which is the single most obvious regression candidate on this roster. In Week 1 he played 50 snaps — more than any Indianapolis pass-catcher — and caught a touchdown on five targets.

He carries the same two-half split as everyone else here: 13.6 PPR points a game and TE6 before the bye, 7.2 and TE26 after it. And Pittman’s departure to Pittsburgh removed 2025’s other high-volume target, while Keenan Allen’s arrival adds a short-area competitor for exactly the throws Warren lives on.

Our verdict: draft him as a top-four tight end wherever he falls, and prefer the outlets that have him near pick 60 to the one that has him at 86. Our Week 2 board had him at TE3 and we were comfortable there. Volume at tight end is rare, touchdown rates on 112 targets do not stay at four, and the ADP spread from 49 to 86 across outlets means somebody in your league is getting him a full round late.

Injury watch

As of Tuesday, November 3, 2026, Tyler Warren has cleared the groin injury that cost him recent game time and carries no designation, so he is back to a lock in your lineup. Alec Pierce remains on injured reserve with a heel injury and has not been activated; with him out, Josh Downs is the No. 1 receiver. Keenan Allen and Jonathan Taylor also carry no current designation. Further down the depth chart, backup tight end Pharaoh Brown and receiver Anthony Gould are out and third-string quarterback Riley Leonard is out, none of whom affect your lineup. Check the live table above before locking anyone in.

Statuses updated Nov 5, 2:37 pm EST. Status data: Sleeper.

Report current as of Tuesday, November 3, 2026. The table above refreshes automatically from our status feed.

Team forecast: why we have Indianapolis at 7–10

Fantasy production depends on game script, and game script depends on whether this team is winning. We scanned fifteen independent projections. The consensus lands just over eight wins. We are more than a win below it, and this is the biggest gap between us and the field on any AFC South page.

Source	Type	Wins	Finish / Call
Paul Bretl, Colts Wire	Analyst	11–6	Playoffs
Aaron Schatz DVOA projections, FTN	Model	9.30	10th in total DVOA, 55.6% playoffs — the model that likes them most
NFLDraftBuzz season projection	Model	9–8	3rd, AFC South — 30% playoffs
Opta supercomputer	Model	8.44	3rd, behind Jacksonville and Houston; 42.7% playoffs
ESPN FPI	Model	8.40	19th of 32; 39.2% playoffs, 22.0% division
Pro Football Network	Model	8–9	3rd — 35.2% playoffs behind Houston 61.5% and Jacksonville 55.0%
PFF projected win totals	Model	7.72	Against a 7.5 line
DraftKings	Market	7.5	Over −140; AFC South +380 to +425
Nick Hennion, BetMGM	Market + lean	7.5	Over — cites the 12th-easiest schedule and 2.9 wins under expected in 2025
Caesars	Market	7.5	Over −120
BetRivers	Market	7.5	Over −134; playoffs +160
Doc’s Sports	Analyst	—	Over 7.5 — “one of the sneakiest teams in terms of depth”
TheLines	Market summary	—	“Approximately 7–8 wins”; playoffs ~37% implied
Bleacher Report	Analyst	7–10	Under 7.5
R.J. White, CBS Sports	Analyst	—	Under 7.5 (+115) — “a house of cards ready to fall”
This site	Our call	7–10	3rd, AFC South — no playoffs

Why we are more than a win under. Start with the thing every model has to explain away. Indianapolis went 8–2 last season and then lost its final seven games — the first team in NFL history to start 8–2 and finish with a losing record. Most projections average those two teams together and land near eight wins. We think the average is the wrong operation. The 8–2 team had a healthy Daniel Jones; the 1–7 team did not, from Week 14 onwards. He is back, but he is back from an Achilles tear, and the one model that priced that explicitly — Schatz’s — still applies a penalty to the first month.

Second, the front of the schedule is brutal and our picks say so. We have Indianapolis 0–5 through five weeks against Baltimore, Kansas City, Houston, Washington in London and Pittsburgh. That is not a prediction we enjoy making and it is the load-bearing part of the 7–10. Note that this is the direct opposite of BetMGM’s Over case, which rests on the Colts having the 12th-easiest schedule by opponent win totals and the easiest in the division. Both things can be true: the season as a whole is soft, and the first five weeks are not, and a team that starts 0–5 spends the rest of the year playing catch-up with a rookie-heavy defence.

Third, that defence. Fantasy Life ranks it 24th, The Ringer 16th. Sharp Football Analysis has the run defence at a solid 4.0 yards per carry allowed, seventh in the league — and the pass rush 23rd in pressure rate at 34.2% with 39 sacks, before Kwity Paye left for Las Vegas and Samson Ebukam for Atlanta. Charvarius Ward was limited to seven games by three separate concussions; Cam Bynum allowed a 77.6 passer rating. Sauce Gardner, acquired for two first-round picks, is a genuine asset on an otherwise thin unit. In Week 1 that defence allowed 41 points and 506 yards with zero pass break-ups and zero tackles for loss. One game, but a legible one.

Where we sit against the field: R.J. White at CBS and Bleacher Report are the named analysts closest to us, both on the Under. The strongest case against us is Schatz’s DVOA model, which has Indianapolis at 9.3 wins and 55.6% to make the playoffs — ahead of Jacksonville — and Nick Hennion’s schedule-based Over at BetMGM. If we are wrong, it will be because the schedule really is the 12th-easiest and the 0–5 start we are projecting turns into 2–3.

Game-by-game, and what it means for your lineup

Wk	Opponent	Site	Pick	Record
1	Baltimore Ravens	Home · Sept 13	L	0–1
2	Kansas City Chiefs	Away · SNF	L	0–2
3	Houston Texans	Home	L	0–3
4	Washington Commanders	London	L	0–4
5	Pittsburgh Steelers	Away	L	0–5
6	Tennessee Titans	Home	W	1–5
7	Minnesota Vikings	Away	W	2–5
8	Jacksonville Jaguars	Away	L	2–6
9	Dallas Cowboys	Home	L	2–7
10	Miami Dolphins	Home	W	3–7
11	Houston Texans	Away · TNF	L	3–8
12	New York Giants	Home	W	4–8
13	Bye	—	—	4–8
14	Philadelphia Eagles	Away	W	5–8
15	Tennessee Titans	Away	W	6–8
16	Cincinnati Bengals	Home	W	7–8
17	Cleveland Browns	Away	L	7–9
18	Jacksonville Jaguars	Home	L	7–10

The fantasy read on that shape: 0–5, then 7–5 the rest of the way. A team that is behind by two scores every Sunday in September throws, and throws short, and hands the ball to the only running back it has.

• Weeks 1–5 — do not panic-sell Jonathan Taylor. An 0–5 team with a first-round back is the single most common trade opportunity in fantasy football. Taylor caught four targets in a blowout loss in Week 1 and still scored 22.1 points. Buy, do not sell.
• Weeks 6–7 — the first breathing room. Tennessee at home and Minnesota away are the two most winnable games on the calendar back to back, and the first stretch where Warren and Downs should see a neutral script.
• Week 13 bye — late, but it clears. It falls after most trade deadlines and before every fantasy playoff bracket we know of, so it is a mild negative rather than a real one. Compare Dallas in Week 14, which is genuinely costly.
• Weeks 15–17 — a soft championship stretch on paper. At Tennessee, home to Cincinnati, at Cleveland. We have Indianapolis 2–1 there, and it is the best three-week run on the schedule.
• The counterintuitive one: everybody reads an 0–5 start as the reason to avoid this roster, and it is the reason to buy it. The stretch to actually fear is the one that starts at the Week 13 bye, for a reason that has nothing to do with opponents: a 4–8 team is a team that has stopped playing for anything, and Taylor is the exact profile — a 300-touch back with no backup on a roster with nothing to protect — whose workload quietly gets managed in Weeks 16 and 17. Last year’s version of this team collapsed in precisely those weeks and took his points per game from 27.0 to 12.6 with it. If you own Taylor, the risk is not September. It is the last two weeks of your bracket.

Frequently asked

Should I draft Jonathan Taylor in the first round in 2026?

Yes. He goes between 2.5 and 7.8 depending on the outlet, he led the NFL in carries and total touchdowns last season, and in Week 1 he was the only Indianapolis running back to record a carry — the depth chart behind him is a seventh-round rookie with no NFL touches and a third-stringer with 26 career touches. FTN ranks the offensive line fourth in the league. The genuine risk is the 2025 shape rather than the role: 27.0 PPR points a game through Week 10, then 12.6 from Week 12 on, after his quarterback tore an Achilles. Draft him, and read the Week 16–17 note above before you plan your bracket around him.

Josh Downs or Alec Pierce in 2026?

Downs, and it is not close at their prices. In Week 1 Downs ran 32 routes on 34 dropbacks — 93.8% route participation — from the slot on 78.8% of them, and played more snaps than any Colts receiver. Pierce played 32 of 54 snaps on an explicit snap count while still working back from March ankle and heel surgery, and ranked 49th in the league in target share last season despite leading the NFL at 21.3 yards a catch. Downs costs an ADP of 83 to 116, Pierce 56 to 96. Pierce is on injured reserve with a heel injury, so Downs is the No. 1 receiver for now; check the live Injury watch table on this page for the latest.

Is Tyler Warren a top-five tight end in 2026?

Yes, and we have him top four. He led the Colts with 112 targets as a rookie — fifth-most all time by a rookie tight end — caught 76 for 812 yards, and saw four or more targets in every game. He scored only four touchdowns on that volume, which is the clearest positive regression candidate on the roster, and Michael Pittman Jr.’s trade to Pittsburgh removed the other high-volume target. His ADP ranges from 49.4 at Pro Football Network to 86.5 at Fantasy Football Calculator, so shop around.

Who is the Colts’ starting quarterback in 2026?

Daniel Jones. He is listed first on Colts.com’s depth chart with Anthony Richardson Sr. as the backup and Riley Leonard third, and the competition that defined 2025 is settled. The caveat is his Achilles, torn in Week 14 last season; Aaron Schatz’s DVOA model applies an explicit first-month penalty to Indianapolis because of it. Jones was QB5 in fantasy scoring through ten weeks of 2025 with five rushing touchdowns, which is the upside, and he went 19-of-31 for 166 yards with one touchdown and one interception in Week 1, which is the present. He is a superflex option only; see our current rankings for where he sits this week.

Will the Colts make the playoffs in 2026?

We project no — 7–10 and third in the AFC South, more than a win below a consensus that averages 8.24. The market agrees more than the models do: the win total opened at 8.5 and was bid down to 7.5, and the Colts are +380 to +480 to win the division. Our case is the opening schedule, where we have them 0–5 against Baltimore, Kansas City, Houston, Washington and Pittsburgh, plus a pass rush that ranked 23rd in pressure rate before losing Kwity Paye and Samson Ebukam. R.J. White at CBS is the named analyst closest to us, calling this team “a house of cards ready to fall.” The strongest case against us is Aaron Schatz’s DVOA model at 9.3 wins and 55.6% playoff odds.

When is the Colts bye week in 2026?

Week 13. That is late, but it clears every fantasy playoff bracket we know of and falls after most trade deadlines, so it costs you a single week of bench planning rather than a playoff round. The genuinely disruptive stretch was Week 4, when Indianapolis played Washington in London and then came straight back for Pittsburgh on the road in Week 5.

Prediction tracker

Updated every Tuesday and Friday. Last update: November 3, 2026 — seven games graded, and we are 3 of 7. We had Baltimore and Kansas City right (41–23 and a 33–30 overtime loss), but we missed both Houston and Washington: we picked the Colts to lose both games and they won both, 19–17 and then in London, so the 0–5 start we built the forecast around broke in back-to-back weeks. We got Week 5 back: we picked Pittsburgh to beat Indianapolis, and it did, 34–22. We missed Week 6 too: we picked the Colts to beat Tennessee at home, and the Titans won instead. We missed Week 7 as well: we had Indianapolis beating Minnesota on the road, and the Vikings won 16–10 to stay unbeaten. Indianapolis is 2–5, now roughly on our 7–10 pace rather than ahead of it. The defence, which worried us after three weeks at 30th in the league, is allowing 27.3 points a game through six weeks — still bottom-third in the league and roughly in line with our preseason call. We do not revise the original forecast; we grade it.

Metric	Predicted	Actual	Delta
Team record	7–10	2–5 through 7 games	Roughly on pace — a projected 7–10 season implies about 2.9 wins through seven games
AFC South finish	3rd	—	—
Playoffs	No	—	—
Points allowed rank	26th	27.3 allowed per game through six weeks, still bottom-third of the league	Roughly in line with our preseason call
Taylor positional finish	Top-five RB	—	—
Warren positional finish	Top-four TE	—	—
Downs finishes above Pierce	Yes	—	—
Start 0–5	Yes	No — broken by wins in Weeks 3 and 4	Off pace
Games called correctly	—	3 of 7	Week 7 at Minnesota added to the miss column

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Keep going

• Half-PPR fantasy rankings — where every Colt sits on our current board
• Start/Sit calls — our latest lineup decisions, including who absorbs the Colts targets
• 2026 team fantasy outlooks — every team we have written up so far
• Houston Texans fantasy outlook — the division winner on our board at 10–7, sweeping Indianapolis in Weeks 3 and 11
• Jacksonville Jaguars fantasy outlook — 8–9 and second, and the other team that sweeps Indianapolis
• Dallas Cowboys fantasy outlook — the Week 9 visitor to Lucas Oil, whom we have winning at 9–8
• Live injury report — where any of this changes between Tuesdays
• Our track record — every call we make against consensus, graded after the games

Sources: Colts.com, ESPN, CBS Sports, NFL.com, FOX Sports, NBC Sports, Sports Illustrated and Horseshoe Huddle, RotoWire, Pro Football Network, PFF, FTN Fantasy, Fantasy Life, Draft Sharks, PlayerProfiler, Sharp Football Analysis, FantasyPros, Fantasy Football Calculator, Footballguys, DraftKings Network, The Ringer, Bleacher Report, Yahoo Sports, Colts Wire, USA TODAY, NFLDraftBuzz, Opta via The Analyst, Doc’s Sports, TheLines, Covers, VegasInsider, BetMGM, DraftKings, Caesars, BetRivers, FanDuel Research, Wikipedia. Odds, ADP and injury data current as of September 18, 2026. Analysis, not betting advice.