They are not mathematically eliminated, but any marginal hopes the Indianapolis Colts had of making the playoffs in 2025 evaporated on Monday night against a very good San Francisco 49ers team. It’s probably for the best. It was clear in Week 16 that the current, badly wounded version of Indianapolis has no business sharing the field with the league’s best.
So now the postmortem can begin. And the planning for the future. There are far more questions than answers at this point, but Colts’ fans should remember that this team was as good as anyone in the league during the first half of the season, and though that may have been partly due to a weak schedule, they nonetheless have a lot of very good pieces.