Colts 5th round pick Josh Chapman has yet to play a down of football since his Alabama Crime Tide won the national championship earlier this year, and he will have to wait until next season before he can play again. Here's Chapman himself, via Twitter:

Injured Reserve For the rest of the season now it's just time to get this knee to a 100% so it's Beast Mode come next season. #COLTSTRONG

— Josh Chapman (@The_Boss61) November 27, 2012

If you listened to interim head coach Bruce Arians on his Monday radio show last night, as I did, you had to get the sense that Chapman simply was not healthy enough to play in 2012. Arians told Colts radio announcer Bob Lamey that Chapman had suffered several setbacks with his injured knee since coming off the P.U.P. list in October.

Going forward, fans have to wonder if Chapman will ever suit up for the Colts. He's a 300-plus pound nose tackle who played on an injured knee throughout most of the 2011 college football season. No one will question his toughness, but how smart was that decision for his long-term career playing football? Right now, it doesn't look so good.

As our friend Phil B. Wilson of the Indianapolis Star told us during the preseason, the Colts had high hopes for Chapman this season, and they expected his knee to be healthy enough to for him play by the start of the exhibition games. Jim Irsay himself listed Chapman as a key player in a tweet back in mid-October. When it was obvious he wouldn't be ready for the regular season, and thus landed on P.U.P., you had to wonder if Chapman would play at all. Today's news confirms he won't in 2012.

Chapman is the third defensive lineman the Colts have placed on IR in two weeks, joining Fili Moala and Drake Nevis. With Moala and Chapman recently landing on IR this week, the Colts have two open roster spots.

Gonna go out on a limb and speculate that maybe, just maybe, one of those spots will get filled by a defensive lineman.