Indianapolis Colts former Pro Bowl veteran defensive tackle, DeForest Buckner, who recently had neck surgery, looks like he’s eyeing a return for the 2026 regular season (via his personal Instagram account):
On Thursday, Colts embattled longtime general manager Chris Ballard also indicated in his end-of-season press conference that, “Buck had surgery it was successful. His mindset is that he’s going to play again.”
The 31-year-old veteran defensive tackle was limited to 10 starts this past season because of a lingering neck injury. After Week 9 at the Pittsburgh Steelers, Buckner was placed on injured reserve with a neck injury. However, after being activated off injured reserve in Week 16, he re-aggravated the injury against the San Francisco 49ers at home and was shut down for the season, being placed on injured reserve again.
This time, for good in 2025.
He finished his 10th season prematurely with 47 tackles (30 solo) and 4.0 sacks during those 10 starts. Per PFF, he was graded as their 16th best interior defender this past regular season with a +74.0 overall grade.
Buckner has one year left on his current Colts contract for 2026 with a cap hit of $20.8M.
In recent seasons, Buckner been arguably the Colts most valuable player collectively and unquestionably their best defensive player consistently since retired All-Pro linebacker Darius Leonard suffered a career-altering back injury. It’ll be interesting to see whether this neck injury limits Buckner or if he can make a full recovery himself.
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