NFL schedule 2018: Each team’s biggest game

Indianapolis Colts: vs. Houston Texans

Andrew Luck’s season-long absence was the headline for the Colts in 2017, and his status is still a lingering question now heading into the 2018 campaign. But one positive, and perhaps the only real positive, was a season sweep of the Texans among their four wins last year. Facing the loose definition of quarterbacking Tom Savage and T.J. Yates offer helped, rather than Deshaun Watson, but a rebuilding franchise like Indianapolis has to take literal and figurative wins wherever it can.

With or without Luck back on the field this season, and regardless of his ability to perform close to his pre-shoulder injury/surgery form, it will be an uphill climb for the Colts in the AFC South they once ruled practically by default.

The Colts have a return to Foxboro, for the first time since the AFC Championship Game that launched “DeflateGate” in January for 2015, to take on the Patriots on their schedule this year. But the two teams are in way different places now, and any lingering local fan ire has surely diminished. The Colts are 14-2 all-time at home against the Texans, and in 2018 against what should be a far better team that home game will be their Super Bowl.