20 years separate Super Bowl XLI from Super Bowl LXI, and the Indianapolis Colts have not won one since the first of them. Peyton Manning’s side beat the Chicago Bears in the Miami rain in February 2007, and the franchise has spent most of the time since looking for a route back. Anyone reading the Indianapolis Colts @ Washington Commanders odds will find a team the market treats as capable rather than dangerous. That gap between capable and dangerous is where surprises tend to start.
Jonathan Taylor is the engine
Every unlikely run needs one player opponents cannot plan around, and the Colts have theirs. Jonathan Taylor ran for 1,585 yards and 18 touchdowns in 2025, led the league in carries and rushing scores, and passed Edgerrin James as the franchise’s all-time leader in rushing touchdowns. He also led the league with 1,811 rushing yards back in 2021, so this is a second peak rather than a first.
He set career highs as a receiver too, which counts for more than it sounds. A running back who wins on third down stays on the field in January, when games slow down and possessions get scarce. Taylor has signed an extension and been named a captain, so the offence is built around him by design.
Shane Steichen has been to a Super Bowl
Steichen has already coached in one, though not as the man in charge. As Philadelphia’s offensive coordinator he called plays for the third-highest scoring offence in the league in 2022 and brought Jalen Hurts to 3,701 passing yards and 13 rushing touchdowns. His unit put up 35 points in a 38-35 defeat to Kansas City in Super Bowl LVII.
Before Philadelphia he oversaw Justin Herbert’s record-setting rookie season with the Chargers. A head coach who has stood on that sideline carries something a first-timer does not, and the NFL odds rarely account for it.
The route to SoFi Stadium
Super Bowl LXI is at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood on 14 February 2027, and the road there starts inside the AFC South. Winning a division shared with Houston, Jacksonville and Tennessee is the cheapest way to a home play-off game, and seeding shapes almost everything about how an underdog’s January goes.
After that, Indianapolis would most likely have to beat two of Kansas City, Buffalo and Baltimore, probably away. Teams have done exactly that. Fixtures like the Week 4 meeting with Washington in London can quietly cost a seed months before anyone notices, and the Colts have now played in Europe three times in four seasons.
What has to go right
Three things, broadly. Daniel Jones has to stay upright. He threw for 3,101 yards with 19 touchdowns and eight interceptions across 13 games last season before a torn Achilles ended it. Without him the Colts finished 8-9 and missed the play-offs. Anthony Richardson is now the backup, which gives Indianapolis a fallback most contenders do not have.
The defence has to hold up in one-score games, which is where most January results are decided. And the wildcard picture must fall kindly, because a road trip to Kansas City in January is a different task to a home game in a warm dome.
Why it is not far-fetched
Short-priced favourites win most Super Bowls, and the market is right far more often than not. The exceptions are frequent enough to keep the question alive, though. The 2007 New York Giants, the 2010 Green Bay Packers and the 2005 Pittsburgh Steelers all won the title after entering the play-offs as a wildcard.
What those teams had was a quarterback playing his best football at the right time, a running game that could take the clock away, and a defence that got hot. Indianapolis can claim the first two without much argument. The third is the question mark, and it is the honest reason the market prices them where it does.
Twenty years is a long silence for a franchise with a Super Bowl banner already in the building. Quiet is not the same as finished, and the Colts have enough of the right parts to make February 2027 a reasonable ambition.
Betting is for over-18s only.
