With Vikings up next, Colts try to focus on football while reflecting on former GM Chris Ballard

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — The ramifications from Chris Ballard's firing continued to resonate throughout the Indianapolis Colts locker room Wednesday.

And everyone understood the message — win or more changes could be coming.

Two days after team co-owner Carlie Irsay-Gordon announced her decision, Colts players got a chance to reflect on the man who constructed Indy's current roster even as they tried to remain focused on Sunday's game at unbeaten Minnesota.

“Whenever you see anyone let go in this business, especially someone like him — he's a first-class guy — it's tough,” quarterback Daniel Jones said. “He cares about the players, treats all the players the right way, and you can tell he really cares. I feel lucky to have spent the time together with him and have the ultimate respect for who he is as a man. So it's tough, a tough part of the business.”

Ballard spent nearly a full decade making the tough personnel decisions, building bonds and earning the respect of his players.

He gave Jones a fresh start in 2025. Jones had sought and received his release from the New York Giants in November 2024 then finished that season on the Vikings practice squad.

Indy brought in Jones to compete for the starting job with Anthony Richardson, whose injury history and inconsistency created an opening just two seasons after Ballard used the No. 4 overall draft pick on Richardson. Indy re-signed Jones to a two-year deal in March based largely on his 10-game start last season before he suffered a torn right Achilles tendon.

Yet nobody in the team complex was more loyal to Richardson than Ballard.

“He believed in me enough to have me here, and I'm forever grateful for that,” Richardson said. “I'm trying to do my part and not make him feel like he made the wrong decision. So I'm just trying to keep getting better every week and am waiting on my opportunity.”

Many Colts fans wanted Ballard and head coach Shane Steichen gone last season. They started 8-2, then lost their final seven games and missed the playoffs for a fifth consecutive season.

Instead, Irsay-Gordon gave both a second chance with a not-so-subtle stipulation — make the playoffs, compete for a Super Bowl or face the consequences.

A 2-3 start didn't help. Neither did last weekend's performance against previously winless Tennessee. Indy blew a 13-0 halftime lead, allowing the Titans to rally for a 26-20 victory as the home fans booed loudly throughout the second half and burst into chants of “Fire Ballard.”

On Monday, Irsay-Gordon announced she was making that very move, one that has put everyone at the team complex on notice.

“I think there's pressure in this league every year, regardless of the circumstances,” Steichen said. “And as the head coach, you've got to lead this team, empower your players, guide them through every single day and put them in position and that's I way look at it — put your head down and go to work. That's all you can do.”

Steichen said he has met with assistant general manager Ed Dodds, who will replace Ballard on an interim basis.

Some fans want even more changes as the Colts have lost 11 of 13, including seven straight road games. Steichen has repeatedly said this week he is not making a quarterback switch and does not intend to make any moves with his coaching staff.

Jones has struggled mightily this season, completing just 59.6% of his throws with four TD passes and six interceptions. He's also lost three fumbles and has taken 15 sacks.

The defense ranks in the bottom five of the league in points allowed (164) and is tied with Dallas and Philadelphia for the fewest takeaways (three).

And last weekend, the Colts special teams units allowed a 58-yard punt return to set up Tennessee's tying score and a blocked punt that was returned for the go-ahead score.

But with so much to correct, the Colts know they can't afford any distractions in this turbulent, emotional week. It's time to get back to football.

“I think every single day we have to come out here and no matter what happens, we have to go out there and continue to work to get over these losses,” Camryn Bynum said. “I think that's the biggest thing, being able to move forward from the bad weeks we've had. We have to move forward because, as players, the only thing we can control is our performance on that field.”

See AP’s full NFL coverage here

Indianapolis Colts head coach Shane Steichen speaks during a news conference following an NFL football game against the Tennessee Titans Sunday, Oct. 18, 2026, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/AJ Mast)

FILE - Indianapolis Colts general manager Chris Ballard on the sidelines during an NFL preseason football game against the Atlanta Falcons in Indianapolis, Aug. 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Zach Bolinger, File)

Indianapolis Colts safety Cam Bynum (0) celebrates his interception with cornerback Cam Taylor-Britt (29) and safety Jonathan Owens (38) during the first half of an NFL football game against the Tennessee Titans, Sunday, Oct. 18, 2026, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/AJ Mast)

Tennessee Titans defensive tackle Jeffery Simmons (98) sacks Indianapolis Colts quarterback Daniel Jones (17) during the first half of an NFL football game Sunday, Oct. 18, 2026, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Women plan street demonstrations in more than 20 Polish cities and towns Thursday to protest the lack of access to free and legal abortion.

They're accusing Prime Minister Donald Tusk's liberal government of failing to fulfill its promise to relax Poland's strict abortion laws, and protesting even though the parliament passed two bills on Tuesday aimed at easing abortion rules. The measures are likely to be vetoed by the conservative president, Karol Nawrocki.

Passing the draft laws now, a year before the next parliamentary election, is a case of “token gestures” rather than a genuine effort to reform abortion law, said Zofia Marcinek of the Abortion Dream Team, a reproductive rights activist group in Warsaw.

She said the liberal government knew the draft laws stand no chance of withstanding Nawrocki's veto, and has merely tried to create the impression of taking action because it needs women's support to win elections next year.

Since 1993, legal abortions have been allowed in Catholic Poland only in cases of severe fetal abnormality, risk to the mother’s life and health, or the pregnancy being a result of rape or incest.

Polish women have been pushing for the legalization of abortion ever since, including in a nationwide wave of demonstrations of women wearing black called “Black Protest,” which began in 2016.

Rather than being liberalized, Poland’s abortion laws were tightened further, banning abortions of fetuses with congenital defects in 2020 under the national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) government.

Despite the laws, abortions remain common in Poland, an overwhelming majority of which are carried out by women at home using pills obtained from outside the country. Women who undergo abortions, including by taking pills, do not face criminal responsibility under Polish law. But people helping them, including doctors and family, can potentially be prosecuted.

And abortion remains a taboo subject in Poland, which now has one of Europe’s most restrictive abortion laws, with only Malta imposing stricter limits.

Tusk’s pro-European coalition won the 2023 election in part on a promise to liberalize Poland’s abortion laws. But in 2024, Tusk said his government wouldn't be able to overcome the likely veto of a conservative president. Instead, measures were introduced to prevent hospitals from refusing to perform legal abortions on religious grounds.

"The state will increasingly effectively stand on the side of the woman when she is making dramatic decisions in her life,” Tusk said in 2024 when he announced the measures.

Polish hospitals performed 573 abortions in the first half of 2026, compared to 452 in the whole of 2022 before Tusk came to power, according to data from the national health fund. But activists say tens of thousands of abortions happen yearly outside of hospitals.

Activists organizing Thursday’s protests are claiming the Tusk government has betrayed Polish women — and that Tusk's claims that women's access to abortion has improved during his administration have actually complicated getting care for some women.

“The government's promises act as a type of disinformation,” Marcinek told the AP. “Women getting pregnant hear the prime minister say that everything is ok, that there is access to abortion, and then they end up in the hospital and see that is not the case. So they come to us when it's very late and very complicated and expensive to help them.”

Meanwhile, international donors are less interested in supporting Polish women's rights because they mistakenly believe things have improved, Marcinek said.

In 2025, the Abortion Dream Team opened an “ abortion clinic ” across from the parliament building in Warsaw where women can get information about their options, or even take their abortion pills in the company of supporting activists.

This September, the activists also launched a parcel locker dispensing abortion pills at the same location, nicknamed “Abortomat."

The dispenser is operated by the international feminist non-profit Women Help Women. It enables women needing abortions to get the pills the next day, rather than wait for up to two weeks for home delivery, Marcinek said.

“There are also people who cannot safely order such pills at their own address, for example because of an unsupportive family or abusive partner," she said. “These women can get a pin number and pick up the pills in the machine the next day.”

“In Poland, assisting with an abortion is a criminal offence. Even passing the pills from hand to hand can be considered a crime,” the Abortion Dream Team wrote in a statement. "That’s why we’re hacking the Criminal Code and bringing abortion into the 21st century.”

FILE - Polish abortion rights activists open a center where women can have abortions with pills, either alone or with other women, in Warsaw, Poland on Saturday, March 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski, File)

FILE - A woman with the sign of a women's rights organization and with a pro-LGBT+ rights flag take part in a protest in Warsaw, Poland, Tuesday, July 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski, File)