Daniel Jones' comeback season hit a wall on Sunday, and the Colts are suddenly in free fall.
Videos by FanBuzz
Photo by David Eulitt/Getty Images
The Indianapolis quarterback, already grinding through a fractured fibula, tore his Achilles during the loss to the Jaguars. The Colts dropped to eight and five and tumbled out of the AFC playoff picture. If they miss the postseason, they would become just the sixth team since the AFL-NFL merger to start seven and one and still fall short.
It was a gut punch for a locker room that has been riding Jones' toughness for weeks.
"It's devastating," star running back Jonathan Taylor said, via the Indianapolis Star. "He's out there fighting, scratching, clawing the past few weeks, and to see him go down, you don't know what's going on, you hope for the best.
"I told him I appreciate him so much for risking his body to go out there with us."
Other Colts echoed the same message. They know how much Jones was holding together, and they know how hard it will be to rally around Riley Leonard with the season swinging in the wrong direction.
The injury also creates an uncomfortable long-term question. Indianapolis traded two first-round picks for cornerback Sauce Gardner because the front office believed this group had a legitimate window. Now they are staring at a major hole at quarterback and no premium draft capital to fix it.
That is not today's priority, but it hangs over everything as the Colts try to regroup after losing the player who had been willing himself through injury just to keep them afloat.
