2026 Steelers vs. Colts Week 5 preview: Bring on Danny Dimes

2026 Steelers vs. Colts Week 5 preview: Bring on Danny Dimes

By Wilson Simons

    The Steelers come home Sunday banged up, coming off a loss, and dealing with a locker room that spent the week talking about “disconnects.” Their best chance to fix all of that is a quarterback who can’t stop turning the ball over.

    Pittsburgh (2-2) hosts the Indianapolis Colts (2-2) at 1 p.m. ET Sunday at Acrisure Stadium, and the injury report is ugly. Michael Pittman Jr. is out against his former team after aggravating his foot injury, and Mike McCarthy said it’ll be a multiple-week injury. Jamel Dean didn’t practice all week with his ankle injury and is out. DeShon Elliott is still out. Jalen Ramsey is questionable with the wrist he broke against Cincinnati. Rico Dowdle is questionable too.

    Also Derrick Harmon is out after being carted off in Cleveland with a foot injury. Of all the absences, that’s the one that scares me most, because his first game out comes against Jonathan Taylor.

    Taylor is one of the best running backs in football, and the Colts’ offense runs through him. He leads the league in carries, has six rushing touchdowns already, and has 20-plus touches in every game this season. Since the start of 2025, he has 26 touchdowns, the most in the NFL. Last season, the Steelers allowed 96 rushing yards a game with Harmon and 191.2 in the four games he missed. You do the math on what Taylor could do to a defensive front that got gashed by Jaleel McLaughlin and Quinshon Judkins the minute Harmon left the Browns game.

    That means this one is on the linebackers, and Patrick Queen needs to remember how to play football. Against Cleveland, he got completely wiped out of McLaughlin’s 29-yard touchdown run by rookie receiver KC Concepcion and looked like he gave little to no effort on the play. He also missed the tackle on the Judkins catch that started Cleveland’s comeback. Queen has been a good player before, and he got paid like one. He has to look like it Sunday.

    The good news is that the guy throwing the ball for Indianapolis has been giving it away.

    Daniel Jones tore his Achilles in Week 14 last season, and he hasn’t looked like the same quarterback since he came back. He’s turned it over seven times in four games and has thrown an interception in every game this season. Last week in London, he went 19-of-34 for 143 yards with a pick and a lost fumble, and the Colts only beat Washington’s third-string quarterback because Taylor carried them. The Colts use play-action on 20.3% of their dropbacks, the third-highest rate in the league, but Jones averages just 5.6 yards per attempt on those throws. Only two quarterbacks are worse.

    His safety blanket will be second-year tight end Tyler Warren, and the Steelers’ tight end coverage is a weird stat. They allow the sixth-fewest catches to tight ends per game, but they’re 26th in touchdown rate. That tracks: Hunter Henry and Eli Raridon made big plays in New England, Mike Gesicki scored on fourth down for Cincinnati, and Harold Fannin Jr. caught a touchdown in Cleveland. Tight ends don’t catch a lot against this defense, but when they do, it’s in the end zone.

    The secondary is the other worry, and it’s not just about who’s healthy. The Steelers signed Sean Murphy-Bunting and Terell Smith this week to fill in for Dean, and on Friday Ramsey said there’s “a little bit of a disconnect” in how new players are being brought up to speed. He said coaches need to get them on the field with the starters instead of handing them a playbook and saying “this is how it has to look,” adding, “That’s not how football works.” Aaron Rodgers said earlier in the week that “player-led teams are the best teams,” and Ramsey pointed to that line too. He later posted that he “rocks with the coaches,” but when your best defensive back is publicly questioning the plan two days before a game, it’s not a great sign.

    Here’s what the Steelers do have: T.J. Watt and Cam Heyward. That alone gives them a chance in any game.

    The game plan writes itself. Stop Taylor early, get a lead, and make Jones throw. A Colts team that has to play catch-up becomes a team with a turnover-prone quarterback dropping back over and over again in front of Watt. Every pass rush rep is another chance for a sack or a strip, and Jones has proven he’ll give the ball away under pressure.

    The Steelers have done this to the Colts before. Last November, Indianapolis came to Pittsburgh with an NFL-best 7-1 record, leading the league in scoring and total offense, and the Steelers forced six turnovers in a 27-20 win. That Colts team was hotter than this one. This Steelers team is more beat up than that one but the formula is the same.

Prediction:

    Steelers 26, Colts 20

    This one might come down to who gets the ball first. If the Colts score early, the Steelers have to play catch-up, and given how inconsistent this offense has looked through four weeks, I don’t love how that sounds. The game plan I laid out only works if Pittsburgh is the team with the lead.

    Flip it around, though. If DK Metcalf gives them another game like last week’s five catches for 115 yards and adds a touchdown or two, or if Jaylen Warren puts up another 130-plus all-purpose yards like he did against Cincinnati, I don’t see how the Steelers lose this. However I'm well aware that those are two very big ifs.

    Roman Wilson finds the end zone, Jaylen Warren finally scores his first touchdown of the season, and T.J. Watt adds a little magic, either with a defensive score or a turnover that sets the offense up in the red zone.

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