Signing as an unrestricted free agent this past March with the Indianapolis Colts not only resurrected Daniel Jones’s career but also returned a winning attitude back to the organization.
At the start of the Colts training camp last July in Westfield, Indiana, from fans to media members, you could count on one hand the number of people who would have predicted the team going 8–2 at the season’s midway point. If Colts head coach Shane Steichen, offensive coordinator Jim Bob Cooter, and the rest of the coaching staff were giddy when Jones came aboard as the starting quarterback, imagine how over the moon—or goalpost—they are feeling now.
As the Colts enter their bye week after last week’s game with the Minnesota Vikings in Berlin, much of the team’s success is traced to Jones. Welcoming Week 11 of the NFL schedule this weekend has Jones experiencing his best individual passing statistics of his seventh season in the league.
The Colts, in signing Jones, were clearly looking for an upgrade from 2024. Did they think the man they signed would be the top rated quarterback, running up a 69.9 passing completion percentage, and throwing for 15 touchdowns? Most surely that was the hope.
The 2,569 yards Jones has connected on with his receivers has already outdistanced his passing accuracy of 2024. Jones, in 10 games with the New York Giants last season, passed for 2,070 yards.
With seven regular season games remaining, the Colts sit atop of the American Football Conference (AFC) South. The four-team division, right now, isn’t even close to being competitive. The Jacksonville Jaguars, who are in second place at 5–4, have two games to play with Indianapolis in the final half of the season.
After six mostly frustrating seasons in New York, after being the Giants’ No. 1 draft pick in 2019 and being expected to pick up in directing the team’s offense as legendary quarterback Eli Manning retired in 2020, Jones needed a change in football scenery.
Trading MetLife Stadium, an outdoor venue in East Rutherford, New Jersey, where many of Mother Nature’s elements infringe on a quarterback’s ability to throw, for the comfort of Indianapolis’ Lucas Oil Stadium—a facility that has a luxury of a retractable roof—is working well in resurrecting Jones’ career.
For as long as many Colts fans can remember, the one constant to the team’s leadership on the field has been at the quarterback position. Peyton Manning was on the job for 13 seasons, and in the process brought home a Super Bowl championship. Next, Andrew Luck guided the offense for a half dozen seasons. Since Luck’s final season in 2018, the Colts have had 11 contenders for the quarterback position.
Acquiring a player of Jones’s experience, despite enjoying only one winning season in six with the Giants and one postseason appearance losing to the Philadelphia Eagles in the division round, the Colts have a veteran starter who they believe they can build an offense around for many seasons to come.
In sports, results are the absolute storyteller. Wins and losses are how careers get judged. With the Colts being one of three AFC teams with an .800 winning percentage thus far in 2025, Jones has to be a serious candidate for the NFL’s Most Valuable Player Award this season.
One more major test for Jones in the coming weeks is when the Colts travel to play the Kansas City Chiefs. The Week 12 contest at Kansas City’s Arrowhead Stadium to play against the league’s sixth-best ranked total defense could give Jones difficulties. Although the Chiefs are in the midst of a disappointing 5-4 season, they are 4-1 while playing at home in 2025.
Last season in New York, the Jones-led Giants were 2–8 after their first 10 games—the exact opposite of the joy being experienced at Lucas Oil Stadium this season. As Jones’s situation with the Giants began unraveling in earnest last season, the team released him on Nov. 22, 2024. It was Jones himself that broached the topic of parting ways with the team that drafted him out of Duke University. After clearing waivers, the Minnesota Vikings claimed Jones. He remained on their practice for the rest of the regular season.
Jones’s one-year, $14 million contract with Indianapolis is considered a win-win, for both player and organization. Few around the NFL would be surprised if negotiations would already be underway to strike a deal that would keep Jones in Colts blue and white for several seasons to come. By simply knowing it was time to walk away for a new quarterback opportunity, Jones is having the season of his career 700 miles west of where it all began.
