Over the last two years, the Indianapolis Colts have played in just two primetime games. This year, they will have two again, but none on Monday night. Former NFL player and ESPN analyst Pat McAfee, who joins the Monday Night Football cast for the 2026 season, feels the disappointment of not covering his own team on the screen.
During a live segment of The Pat McAfee Show, the host was joined by Marcus Spears, the former Dallas Cowboys star defensive end and co-host of MNF. Spears took a playful jab at McAfee, teasing him with a simple question: “Are we in Indy for Monday night this year?” That was all it took to send McAfee into a full rant.
“You need to stop…We were the best team in the ball…I am a season ticket holder, OK, for the Indianapolis Colts at Lucas Oil Stadium…We ain’t never getting a Monday night football game there,” McAfee replied on the show, via X.
“We were at one o’clock. We made a jersey, an alternate uniform called Indiana Nights, OK, because she grew up tall, and she grew up right with them Indiana boys on them Indiana Nights. We didn’t have a single night game on the schedule. We wore the one o’clock in the afternoon. Indiana Nights jersey was worn at one o’clock in the afternoon because we didn’t have a night game. That’s what your network says about the Indianapolis Colts.”
The last time the Colts played a Monday night game at home, they lost 48-27 to the San Francisco 49ers in 2025. Before that, they hosted the Los Angeles Chargers in that same slot on December 26, 2022, and lost 20-3. In franchise history, the team holds a 25-22 record when playing on Monday Night Football.
Historically, the Colts have been regular fixtures in primetime, though scheduling patterns have occasionally pushed them out of the primetime slot.
“In 2024, the Colts played one primetime game – a Week 9 road game against the Minnesota Vikings, which was flexed into Sunday Night Football. The Colts’ Week 11 game last year against the New York Jets was scheduled for Sunday Night Football but was flexed out of that primetime window,” Colts writer JJ Stankevitz of NFL.com wrote in 2025.
Over the past 15 seasons, the Colts have struggled to shine in primetime, posting a 17-26 record and a winning percentage of just 39%. According to a 2021 report by the Indy Star, the Colts were the team that hosted the lowest percentage of primetime games at home.
One of the reasons the coverage around the Colts is shrinking is the departure of quarterback Peyton Manning. Under center, Manning led the team to back-to-back playoff appearances and two Super Bowl runs in four years. But he left after the 2010 season. McAfee, who was drafted by the Colts in the seventh round in 2009, got a taste of that era.
Since then, the team has struggled to bounce back to that Super Bowl glory standard. They have missed the last five postseasons and have managed to earn a playoff berth just five times in the last 15 years, reaching the AFC Championship only once.
For McAfee, the frustration is personal. He spent eight seasons punting for the Colts, and he remains one of the franchise’s most loyal supporters. Watching his team get passed over for night games, while he now works on the very show that overlooks them, is a tough pill to swallow.