The Colts caught a bad break on the last snap of their preseason opener. Special teams coordinator Brian Mason went down on the sideline after two engaged players spilled out of bounds and rolled into him on the final Hail Mary attempt of a 13-13 tie with the Patriots.
ESPN reports Mason suffered multiple torn ligaments in the knee. Multiple. That is season-altering news for a coach who runs an entire phase of the football team.
The injury happened in garbage time of a meaningless summer game, which somehow makes it worse. Riley Leonard heaved a prayer as the clock hit zero, a Colts blocker and a Patriots rusher stayed locked up after the release, and both fell into Mason as he tracked the play near the boundary. Bad luck, poor angle, no way to see it coming.
Mason flew back to Indianapolis with the team and underwent further evaluation on Friday. The Colts have not officially detailed how they will patch the coaching staff for camp and the regular season. Senior assistant special teams coach Joe Hastings is the natural in-house option to shoulder more of the load if Mason’s mobility is limited for weeks or months.
This is not a small hole to fill. Mason has coordinated the Colts’ special teams unit since 2024 and is considered one of the sharper young voices in the league at that phase. Indianapolis has leaned heavily on its kicking game to steal field position and points, especially in tight divisional matchups.
Losing a coordinator for even a chunk of the season forces awkward workarounds. Practice reps get restructured and meetings get restaffed. Someone else on the staff picks up a workload they weren’t planning to carry, which chews into the time coaches usually spend on their own units.
Sideline injuries to coaches are not new, but severe ones are rare enough that the video will likely start a fresh round of conversation about sideline safety and how officials manage the last snap chaos. Preseason or not, players running full speed into a stationary adult produce ugly outcomes.
The good news, if there is any, is that Mason is not a player and his career isn’t on the line the way a torn knee would threaten a snapper or gunner. He’ll have time to heal. In the meantime, the Colts have to build a special teams operation without their coordinator on his feet, and the preseason isn’t over yet.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
