Hogs Haven
The 5 o’clock club is published from time to time during the season, and aims to provide a forum for reader-driven discussion at a time of day when there isn’t much NFL news being published. Feel free to introduce topics that interest you in the comments below.
Other articles in the 2026 preview series: Wk 1 Eagles – Wk 2 Cowboys – Wk 3 Seahawks
In 2026, the Commanders will, like every other team in the NFL, play 17 games against 14 opponents. With the amount of roster change that NFL teams undergo annually along with the unusually large number of head coach and coordinator changes in 2026, it seems useful to spend some time to review each of Washington’s regular season opponents.
Week 4 will see the Commanders travel to London for one of its 9 “home” games, this one against the first AFC opponent of the season, the Indianapolis Colts.
Date: October 4, 2026, 9:30 a.m. ET
Location: Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London, England
Washington played a pair of division rivals on the road to open the season, traveling to Philadelphia and Dallas. The Commanders played at home against the defending Super Bowl champion Seahawks in Week 3, and now take the next step in the grueling first quarter of the 2026 regular season by flying to London to play host to the Colts.
The history of this AFC-NFC rivalry is a bit more intense than other inter-conference rivalries because the two teams played each other pretty much annually from 1955 to 1969. The bad news is that the Colts dominated the Redskins during that stretch, winning 14 of 16 games played from 1956 to 1978.
The ‘Skins went 5-2 against Indy over the next two decades, but Washington lost the final four games played with the Redskins logo on the helmet, going 0-4 from ‘06 to ‘18.
The Commanders are undefeated, having beaten the Colts 17-16 on the road in October 2022 in the only game played between the two teams since the name change. In that game, Taylor Heinicke led the team in both passing & rushing yards with a combined 308 yards, 2 TDs & 1 INT; he also ran in the winning touchdown with 00:22 on the clock. Terry McLaurin had 6 catches for 108 yards in his hometown, while Antonio Gibson ran for 19 yards, but added 58 receiving yards and a touchdown, catching all 7 targets.
Dan Quinn will be hoping to log his first win as Commanders head coach against the Colts to extend the current win streak to 2 games. His Falcons lost by 3 points in his only other head coaching matchup with Indianapolis, which took...
