In a season already defined by bad injury luck, Indianapolis got another scare when Charvarius Ward entered concussion protocol for the third time in 2025 and was later moved to injured reserve.
The Colts, who just watched Daniel Jones tear his Achilles and saw Riley Leonard pop up with a knee issue, are suddenly trying to hold their playoff hopes together with backups all over the depth chart.
With Sauce Gardner sidelined by a calf injury and DeForest Buckner already on IR, the secondary and defense as a whole are being stretched to the limit.
Amid that chaos came a wave of speculation that Ward, after yet another head injury, might simply walk away from the game. Adam Schefter poured cold water on that talk, reporting on X that Ward has no intention of retiring despite being shut down and placed on IR.
According to Schefter, Ward actually wanted to keep playing and hoped to avoid the injured reserve move altogether, but the organization stepped in and overruled him out of caution.
It’s a revealing split between a player who clearly still loves competing and a front office that has to think long term about both health and liability. Three concussions in one year is serious territory, and the Colts were never going to let a veteran cornerback rush himself back just because the depth chart looks thin.
And also, the Jones injury still looms large over everything. After undergoing Achilles surgery, the veteran was given a six- to eight-month recovery timeline, as previously reported, which theoretically puts him on track for training camp.
That sounds encouraging, but it also forces the Colts into a complicated offseason decision on whether to tie their future to a mobile quarterback coming off a major lower-leg injury.
For now, their top corner is vowing to keep playing, their presumed franchise quarterback is rehabbing, and a once-promising season rests on how well backups can survive the stretch run.
