Daniel Jones and the Indianapolis Colts have posted some unbelievable numbers through the first three weeks of the 2025 NFL season. They’re first in offensive DVOA. They’re tied with the Lions for second in points per game (34.3). They’re averaging 418.7 yards per game, which ranks second behind the Bills. Only Baltimore has created more explosive plays. Jones leads the NFL in QBR, and he’s tied for second in EPA per dropback. Indy has punted on just 3.9 percent of its drives, the lowest mark in the league and 20 percentage points clear of second lowest. It’s one of just three teams without a turnover, along with Tampa Bay and Buffalo. And Jones has had only one turnover-worthy play this season, per Pro Football Focus.
Some of those statistics would be hard to believe regardless of who was producing them. But the fact that it’s Jones—who within the last calendar year was benched by the Giants for Tommy Devito—is downright shocking, even in this age when we seem to see a successful quarterback reclamation project every season. In 2022, both Geno Smith and Jared Goff made the Pro Bowl after Smith had spent a decade as an NFL journeyman and Goff had been traded away from Los Angeles. In 2023, Baker Mayfield found a new home in Tampa Bay after stints in Cleveland and Carolina, and he played well enough to earn a $100 million contract the following offseason. Last year, the Vikings helped turn Sam Darnold into one of the league’s most productive quarterbacks after he had failed as a starter for the Jets and Panthers. Now, with the Colts sitting at 3-0, it appears to be Jones’s turn.
Like Smith, Mayfield, and Darnold in their reclamation years, Jones didn’t enter training camp with a guaranteed spot atop the depth chart. Each of those passers had to beat out younger and seemingly more promising quarterbacks who had the backing of the fan base. Smith outdueled Drew Lock in Seattle. Mayfield won the job over Kyle Trask, and Darnold caught a break when J.J. McCarthy went down for the season with a torn meniscus (although Darnold was already the favorite to start before McCarthy’s injury). Jones, meanwhile, won a quarterback competition against Anthony Richardson, whom the Colts had drafted with the fourth pick just two years ago. The decision to go with Jones wasn’t a popular one at first. Head coach Shane Steichen was widely criticized for choosing the veteran (even by me!). Jones was coming off two down seasons and a 2023 neck injury that had seemed to rob him of whatever athletic potential he still had left. Richardson hadn’t been any better over the first two seasons of his career, but he was at least one of the league’s youngest quarterbacks and had a very high ceiling. It was easier to envision Richardson breaking through and becoming a quarterback who could lead the franchise to success than Jones, whose ceiling was questioned before he even entered the league.
But the third-year head coach saw something in Jones that made him believe that he could build a good offense around the QB. And three weeks into the season, Steichen looks like a visionary. He’s the early favorite for Coach of the Year, and Jones currently ranks 11th in MVP odds. There’s still a lot of football to be played before we can add Jones’s name to the list of quarterbacks who’ve salvaged their careers in recent years, but the Colts are following all the steps required to turn a reclamation project into a full-on redemption arc. So just what are those steps? And can Jones and Steichen keep this up all season?
Daniel Jones with head coach Shane Steichen before the game against the Broncos on September 14
Step 1: Pair the QB With the Right Play Caller
When announcing the winner of the Jones-Richardson camp battle, Steichen cited “operation at the line of scrimmage” and “ball placement” as the two critical factors that had tipped the scales in Jones’s favor. It wasn’t difficult to read between the lines: The Colts head coach, who had spent the past two seasons calling plays for one of the league’s youngest and rawest quarterbacks, wanted someone he could trust under center. Richardson, by his own admission, wasn’t putting in the necessary off-field work to command an NFL offense, and any football fan could see that he didn’t have the precision to do so. He finished last season with the league’s worst completion percentage (47.7) and likely would have led all passers in mental blunders if that were an official stat. As you could imagine, that all combined to make Steichen’s job as a play caller quite challenging. Even when Steichen dialed up the right play at the right time, Richardson's execution seemed like a 50/50 proposition. At the very least, Steichen believed that by going with Jones, he’d have someone who would make the correct reads (before and after the snap) and put the ball in the general vicinity of his intended receiver.
Steichen fields a very passer-friendly offense—as long as the quarterback is executing the plays as designed. He built his reputation as a play caller in Philadelphia, where he helped accelerate Jalen Hurts’s ascension up the quarterback hierarchy with a simple yet effective approach that focused on a few core passing concepts. Steichen would then dress up these concepts in different ways each week to keep the defense guessing.
“Throughout the league … people are running a lot of the same plays and doing a lot of the same things,” Jones, who spent a half season with the Vikings in 2024, said after being named the starter in Indy. “I think the Minnesota system—that Sean McVay, Kyle Shanahan, Matt LaFleur—that style of offense is unique to those systems. So I'd say that one is pretty different in what they do. But here, I think Shane has great versatility. A lot of ‘spread the guys out,’ a lot of simple pass plays run from different looks [that] can attack a lot of different ways.”
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The simplicity of those passing plays has allowed Jones to operate more quickly than he ever could in New York. Steichen isn’t asking him to cycle through three or four reads on a given play. He’s designing plays to attack coverage looks that put a specific defender in conflict. If that’s not there, Jones can check the ball down quickly before any pressure can get home. Steichen has been on a heater to start the season, so Jones hasn’t had to check it down very often—he’s done it only eight times in three games, per Pro Football Focus—and he is headed for career lows in time to throw and sack rate while sporting the highest average depth of target (8.0) he’s had since his rookie year in 2019.
We’ll break down the specifics of the passing game that Steichen has designed in a bit, but the key point here is that Jones just gets what the offense is aiming to accomplish—and why Steichen is calling certain plays.
“You don't need to draw it up on the whiteboard [for him],” Steichen said of Jones last week. “It's like, 'Hey, we're thinking this versus this coverage.' And he's like, 'Yep, I see it. We can hit that versus that. If that happens, we'll do this and we'll hit that.' Those are the guys that can see it and talk about it without having to draw it up. And [we recognized that] early, as soon as he got here.”
Jones hands the ball off to Jonathan Taylor in the first quarter against the Tennessee Titans on September 21
Step 2: Surround Him With Good Players
This one doesn’t need too much explanation. Talent is a prerequisite for any successful team in the NFL. And while it was harder to recognize while Richardson, Joe Flacco, and Gardner Minshew were leading the offense the past couple of seasons, it’s now apparent that Indianapolis has built a deep cast of skill position players around its quarterback. The Colts aren’t stocked with superstar talent, but Steichen has several guys who can excel in specific roles.
Let’s start with running back Jonathan Taylor, the NFL’s current rushing leader. It’s been a few years since Taylor has played like a top back—mostly because of injury—but he looks as fast as ever this season and is getting plenty of support from his offensive line. Guard Quenton Nelson has also recaptured his early-career form and has been heavily featured in Steichen’s run game. Tackles Braden Smith and Bernhard Raimann have been solid, as expected, and center Tanor Bortolini has been a revelation in the run game after replacing Ryan Kelly this offseason.
The group of pass catchers is also doing its part. Michael Pittman Jr. is once again acting as one of the league’s most reliable chain movers. Alec Pierce has been a menace on vertical routes, which makes it harder for the defense to load the box against the run. And rookie tight end Tyler Warren has been everything the Colts would have hoped for when they drafted him with a first-round pick in April. Steichen has used him all over the formation and has found creative ways to get him the ball. Warren is currently leading the team in targets and yards per route run, and he hasn’t been a liability as a run blocker, as many feared during the predraft process.
This isn’t an all-star cast, but Steichen has them producing like one by doing the same thing he did for Jones: designing an offense that doesn’t ask them to be players they’re not. That makes everyone’s job a little easier.
Jones runs for a first down against the Titans
Step 3: Build a Successful Early-Down Offense
This is an often overlooked aspect of any quarterback reclamation project—and the failure to build a successful offense on first and second down is often why young quarterbacks fail. At least, that’s the theory espoused by Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell, who’s earned a reputation around the NFL as a quarterback whisperer.
“I think too many people in this league force the young quarterback to play the hard down,” O’Connell said in July, referring to obvious passing situations. “And it’s hard enough. There’s no removing the difficulty of what playing the quarterback position is in the NFL. You can’t hide from a third-and-7. … But what are we [as coaches] doing all the other downs? What are we doing to put drives together, stack plays, marry the run and the pass?”
As O’Connell says, playing quarterback in the NFL is never easy, but there are definitely situations that are easier to manage. That is reflected in leaguewide statistical splits: passing efficiency on first and second down is significantly higher than it is on third down, when defensive coordinators can be more creative with their coverage calls and the defensive line can focus on its pass rush responsibilities rather than occupying run gaps. As many coaches say, the best third-down offense is one that avoids third down altogether.
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Through three weeks, the NFL’s best early-down offense has resided in Indianapolis. Of the quarterbacks who have started every week this season, only Darnold has fewer third-down dropbacks than Jones, per TruMedia, and the Colts have on average needed just 4.9 yards to convert, which is the lowest mark in the league. Jones is also destroying the basic coverage looks that defenses throw out on early downs, averaging a league-leading 0.47 EPA per dropback. A lot of that success has been spurred by Steichen’s play-action passing game. Only Matthew Stafford has used a play fake on a higher rate of his dropbacks this season, per TruMedia.
The Colts also have a dynamic run game that shape-shifts seemingly every week. That’s always been a hallmark of Steichen’s play calling, going back to his days as Eagles offensive coordinator. Rather than building around one or two foundational run concepts, as many of the top offenses in the league do, Steichen switches it up week to week based on the fronts he’s getting from opposing defenses. The Colts have had a different primary run concept in each of their first three games. In their Week 1 win over Miami, it was “outside zone.” Against Denver, Steichen preferred “inside zone.” And against the Titans, it was a “duo”-heavy run plan.
Jones also deserves credit for the success of the run game, and not only because he’s a threat to pull the ball on option plays. In an interview with Rich Eisen last week, Taylor credited Jones with checking into several successful runs so far this season. Now, those checks are already built into the play call by Steichen, but it’s up to Jones to recognize the defensive fronts that should trigger the adjustments, and he’s done that at a high level.
“Sometimes you see quarterbacks come into new systems, and of course, it takes a little bit to get everything going,” Taylor said. “Knowing the checks, knowing how to operate and use that system. But I think [Jones] got a really good grasp on it early, and you've been able to see him execute that on the field, which has been really nice.”
Jones throws a pass in the second quarter against the Tennessee Titans
Step 4: Figure Out What the QB Does Best and Lean Into It
The Colts run game has looked different every week, but there hasn’t been much variation in the pass game. And there hasn’t been a ton of volume, either. Steichen has built his pass game around a few core concepts that Jones is executing with supreme efficiency, and the coach is spamming them like a teenager running money plays in Madden. Now, there’s obviously a little more sophistication to Steichen’s approach, but the result is the same: Jones is making the same reads over and over again.
One of Steichen’s favorite tactics this season has been to pair a short route underneath with a deeper crossing route behind it. If the defense is in a zone, that combination creates a high-low read for Jones based on how a certain defender reacts.
If Jones sees man coverage, he can hit the receiver who’s running the crosser away from coverage—or, if there’s no safety help over the top, he can take a vertical shot downfield. Steichen has also leaned on a staple of NFL offenses that dates back to the 1980s: getting under center, faking a handoff, and running a three-level concept with one receiver working deep, one running to the intermediate area, and one acting as a dump-off option in the flat. You can see both concepts in this cut-up of Jones’s best plays from the first three weeks:
Those two concepts have made up the bulk of the Colts passing game so far, yet defenses are struggling to combat this approach thanks to Steichen’s creativity. Watch how he creates the same three-level read for Jones against the Broncos in Week 2 but has Warren run the intermediate route from a backfield alignment, which makes it harder for the linebacker to track him.
Steichen also has plenty of counters for defenses that sell out to stop these core concepts. Jones hit on a big pass early in the win over the Titans that was designed to look like another three-level pass concept. The free safety expects wide receiver Josh Downs to carry his deep route to the sideline to create the three-level stretch, and he overplays it. Downs breaks the route the other way and ends up wide open downfield.
As long as Steichen can stay one step ahead of defenses, he should be able to keep the passing game simple and keep Jones in the comfort zone that has allowed him to play the most efficient football of his career. That may be harder to do as defenses get more tape on the Colts offense, but in Jones, the coach now has a quarterback who can check into a different concept if the defense takes away the initial call.
It’s unlikely that the Colts will go the entire season without turning the football over. They won’t be able to keep their punt rate in the single digits all season, either. Regression will come for Steichen and Jones eventually. But some positive regression could be on the way, too. As good as Indianapolis has been at marching down the field this season, it hasn’t been very good in the red zone, with 46 percent of its drives ending with a field goal attempt. That leads the NFL by a comfortable margin. Turning more red zone possessions into seven points, rather than three, could offset an increase in punts. And if you exclude turnovers for every team, the Colts still rank fifth in EPA per play, per TruMedia. That could be the floor for this offense if it stays relatively healthy.
Look, I’m just as surprised as anyone that Steichen and Jones are pulling this off. But the more you look into how they’re doing it, the more legit it appears. Like any successful quarterback reclamation project of the past few years, the Colts’ early success is built on a strong foundation and a marriage of the right scheme and the right talent. That's already gotten them off to a perfect start and an early lead in the AFC South. And while we have yet to see a deep playoff run from any of the other quarterback redemption stories, Steichen and Jones could change that.
