Even Though The Colts May Finish In Last Place This Season...

[buffalo34]

They are still assured a trip to Foxboro next season regardless of where the Colts and Patriots rank in their divisions at the end of this season. This is because next year the AFC East and AFC South will play each other in their entirety.

If you're already looking ahead to next season, the Colts (and AFC South for that matter) play the AFC East and NFC North.

For the Colts:

Home: Jags/Texans/Titans, Bills, Dolphins, Vikings, Packers, AFC West team (likely to be Chiefs or Broncos at this rate IMO)

Away: Jags/Texans/Titans, Jets, Patriots, Lions, Bears, AFC North team (likely to be Browns or Bengals at this rate)

Looks like a challenging set of opponents for the Colts next season.

In addition, there is a possibility the Colts make it onto Thanksgiving next year. I'll tell you why:

As you know, the Lions and Cowboys always appear on Thanksgiving on tradition. One of the teams plays on FOX, while the other plays on CBS. It alternates every year. This year, the Lions Thanksgiving game will be on FOX while the Cowboys game will be on CBS. Next year, it will be flipped (Lions on CBS, Cowboys on FOX).

The only way for the Lions to appear on CBS is if they are at home hosting an AFC team (because CBS does all of the road games for the AFC, so AFC @ AFC and AFC @ NFC). The only two AFC teams that go to Detroit next year are the Texans and Colts. So there is a 50/50 (ok, it's probably not that simple) chance they get on Thanksgiving next year.

There doesn't seem to be many national TV candidate games for the Colts next year either. THe Packers and Patriots IMO will be definite SNF games.

[Moncrief]

We already discussed this in another thread but it's in the page range of 20 so no chance you saw it but it's okay. Hmm Colts on Thanksgiving day. Doesn't Peyton usually do pretty good on Thanksgiving Day.