Colts 2025 Season in Review

Jonathan Taylor led the entire NFL in rushing touchdowns with eighteen. Eighteen — on a team that missed the playoffs. Here's how the Colts built one of the best rushing attacks in football, why Daniel Jones quietly had the best year of his career before going down, and the defensive number that explains how a seven-and-one start turned into eight and nine. Second among AFC teams on the outside looking in. They started seven and one, all but one of those wins by double digits, and the wheels came off — but the offense was real, and the data tells you exactly where it broke.

Start with the team-level picture. The Colts finished plus seventy-two point nine in total offensive expected points added — ninth in the league, seventy-fifth percentile. The defense? Plus four point seven expected points added allowed, and remember, on defense you want that number deeply negative — so plus four point seven is middle of the pack, sixteenth. Third down was a real strength: forty-three percent conversion rate, eighth in the NFL. The schedule tells the variance story by itself — seven wins in the first eight games, then seven losses in the final nine, including a forty-eight to twenty-seven home blowout to the Niners in Week 16. This was not a steady team. This was a team that smashed the front half and got muffed the back half.

Now let's talk about the passing offense. Daniel Jones threw for thirty-one hundred and one yards, nineteen touchdowns, and only eight interceptions in thirteen games before injury took him out around Week 15. His completion percentage was sixty-eight against an expected of sixty-four point six — plus three point four over expectation, sixth-best among qualified starters. His adjusted net yards per attempt of seven point three also ranked sixth. Genuinely the best stretch of Jones's career. As a unit, the passing game finished plus thirty-two point nine in passing expected points added on five hundred and eighty-two attempts, twelfth in the league — but boom-or-bust, with a clear cliff at the quarterback position once Jones went down. The unit had a top-ten ceiling with Jones healthy. Without him, it fell off a cliff.

Now let's dig into the rushing offense, because this is where the Colts genuinely smashed. Plus thirty-four expected points added on the ground — third in the entire NFL, ninety-fourth percentile. Two thousand and nine rushing yards, a hundred and eighteen point two per game, four point five a carry, twenty-seven rushing scores as a team. Jonathan Taylor was the engine: three hundred and twenty-three carries, fifteen hundred and eighty-five yards, four point nine a pop, and the league-leading eighteen rushing touchdowns. Unlike the passing game, this was the steady floor — even after Jones went down, Taylor kept eating, including an eighty-three-yard touchdown up the middle against the Falcons in Week 10 to flip a 16-17 fourth-quarter deficit. That one run was worth plus six point four expected points by itself. When the rest of the season fell apart, Taylor's production did not. That's the identity of this offense.

Next up, the pass defense — where the math gets uncomfortable. The Colts allowed plus twenty-six expected points added through the air, and on defense you want that number deeply negative, so a positive number means opposing passing games were moving the ball on you. Two hundred and sixty-two and a half passing yards allowed per game. Thirty-nine sacks, sixteenth in the league, fifty-third percentile — middle of the pack pressure. The one thing this unit did well was take the ball away: twenty-two total takeaways including fourteen interceptions, tenth in the NFL, seventy-second percentile. But the back half of the year exposed the coverage — forty-eight points hung on them by the Niners, thirty-eight by the Texans in the finale. Boom-or-bust, and the busts came when it mattered most.

And the run defense was actually the better side of the ball. The Colts allowed minus twenty-one point seven expected points added on the ground — and on defense, that big negative number is exactly what you want. Seventy-eighth percentile in the league. A hundred and two rushing yards a game allowed, sixteen rushing touchdowns surrendered. A quietly good run-stopping unit, steady week after week. Not the loudest stat on the sheet, but the most consistent thing the Colts defense did all year — when teams tried to run on Indy, they generally got nothing.