Patriots and Colts play to a 13-13 preseason tie, offering early lessons for New England

The New England Patriots opened the 2026 preseason with a trip to face the Indianapolis Colts, and the night produced a tidy headline but little offensive drama. The game ended in a 13-13 tie, the kind of result that rarely settles anything in Week 1 terms, but often reveals more than fans expect about how teams are trying to organize their offense, test personnel groupings, and evaluate depth players before the regular season begins.

Preseason games operate on an unusual scoreboard logic. Coaches treat them as live evaluation sessions, mixing starter work with longer runs from backups and situational looks that do not always mirror the play-calling rhythms of the regular season. Against Indianapolis, the Patriots had to navigate the typical preseason flow: short bursts, multiple personnel packages, and frequent reshuffling as the coaching staff searched for consistent execution under time and personnel constraints.

Even in a tie, the match could still be meaningful for New England’s training camp priorities. Low scoring often magnifies small details, such as the ability to sustain drives, move the ball across the middle of the field, protect the quarterback and ball, and finish possessions without turning them into defensive stops. In other words, a 13-13 outcome can be less about “who won” than about which units looked most ready for the next stage of the roster-building process.

For Indianapolis, playing host to New England in the opening week of the preseason also meant prioritizing evaluation. Like the Patriots, the Colts used the exhibition opener to test matchups, try different lineups, and see how players handle in-game adjustments. A tie does not forecast anything about the regular-season standings, but it can indicate where teams feel stable and where they still have gaps that need addressing before Week 1.

A Patriots-Colts preseason game also carries added subtext because the AFC landscape tends to reward teams that can execute across multiple phases, not just in the passing game. When scoring is limited, the run game, third-down efficiency, special teams consistency, and red-zone decisions often become the clearest differences between teams. The Patriots and Colts offered a snapshot of those areas, and the broader “takeaways” framing from the game suggests there were multiple evaluation points beyond the final number.

What to watch next is how those lessons turn into sharper execution in subsequent exhibition weeks. If New England can convert early preseason observations into consistent drive-building, sharper situational execution, and more reliable finishing, the team’s depth chart will likely solidify faster than it would after a game that produces more questions than answers. The challenge, as always, is that preseason preparation can mask true readiness until the regular-season tempo arrives.