Colts to play in London in 2016 vs. Jaguars

The NFL announced their UK International Series for the 2016 season this morning, and the Indianapolis Colts were included among the three games to be played in the UK next year.  The Colts will travel to London for an October 2 "road" game against the division-rival Jacksonville Jaguars.

The game time has not yet been announced, though several of the International Series games this year started at 9:30 a.m. eastern time.  We'll know the start time at a later date, but the game will be played on Sunday, October 2 at Wembly Stadium in London.  That game falls during week four, so it's rather early in the season.

For the Colts, this will be their first ever regular season game played outside of the United States.  The team has played preseason games in Mexico City, Mexico (2000), Tokyo, Japan (2005), and Toronto, Canada (2010) but has never played a regular season game outside of the country.  The Jaguars, on the other hand, will play in London for the fourth consecutive year in 2016 and have a current deal running through 2020 to play one game a year there.  This will be the Jaguars' first AFC South opponent faced in London.

There should be zero surprise with this announcement, as the NFL has wanted this matchup for a while.  In fact, last year there were strong rumors that the Colts would face the Jaguars in London, but that obviously didn't happen.  Either way, though, this is a game that can keep all sides happy - the NFL gets to feature the Colts in London (in a divisional game, no less), while the Colts don't have to give up a home game to do so since the Jaguars will be the home team.