'Knocked it out of the park': How the Colts landed on Shane Steichen as their new coach (2024)

INDIANAPOLIS — Ninety minutes after he signed his contract, and about an hour before he was introduced as the Colts’ new head coach, Shane Steichen grabbed a minute to himself. He needed to breathe, needed to reflect on the whirlwind that had been the last 48 hours.

So he flipped on the first quarter of Super Bowl LVII. He watched. He let it sink in. He thought about what it’d taken to get there, how it all ended, how close they’d been.

“Just to look at it,” he’d say later, “just to be in that moment.”

In the days leading up to the game, Steichen and his wife, Nina, kept having the same conversation: they were grateful one minute, then a bit greedy the next, reminding themselves how fortunate they were to have two career-defining moments colliding at once, then wanting both to go their way. Merely having the chance wasn’t enough. Steichen wanted the Colts’ head-coaching job, sure. But first, he wanted a Super Bowl title.

He was lucky, his wife kept telling him, to have a shot at both.

Sunday night at State Farm Stadium, Steichen called the plays for an offense that piled up 417 yards and 35 points. The Eagles lost by three. Less than 24 hours later, he was aboard Colts owner Jim Irsay’s private plane, headed for Indianapolis and the next chapter of his career, the second-youngest head coach the franchise has ever hired.

The right man for the job. pic.twitter.com/VyRlAJJrKF

— Indianapolis Colts (@Colts) February 14, 2023

“A hell of a ride,” Steichen, 37, said of his two years as Philadelphia’s offensive coordinator, which now seems like a prerequisite to become the Colts’ head coach. It’s a big reason why Steichen is here, tasked with fixing a broken offense and rejuvenating a flailing franchise that desperately needs a new voice and a new vision after the disaster that was last season’s 4-12-1 finish.

In reality, the Colts had all but made up their minds eight days before the Super Bowl, after Irsay flew out to Philadelphia for a five-hour meeting with Steichen in person, just the two of them. A day later, a contingent that included general manager Chris Ballard, director of team development Brian Decker and chief operating officer Pete Ward met with him for more than 10 hours.

Initially, it was Steichen’s intelligence that stood out to the Colts — “brilliant,” Ballard called him. “A special mind for football,” Irsay said. On the football front, the Colts put Steichen through a battery of tests designed to gauge his situational awareness, to measure his mental readiness and recall. They covered everything from down-and-distance to fourth-down decisions to timeout usage. How much does he lean on analytics? They wanted to see how he’d think through problems on game day, how quickly he’d respond when things start happening fast. Steichen excelled, reminding one person in the room of what they used to hear from Peyton Manning.

At one point during the Colts’ exhaustive, 35-day search,Irsay called up his former quarterback, Philip Rivers, who played under Steichen in San Diego and Los Angeles. Rivers raved about his former QB coach and coordinator, telling Irsay about the time Steichen ditched the call sheet and started calling plays solely from memory.

“Savant-like,” Rivers called it.

But the last box to check was everything else that goes into being a head coach: Irsay had to know Steichen could command a room. He had to feel his presence. He had to know he could lead a group of men. That was what this five-hour sit-down in Philadelphia was about the Friday before the Eagles flew to Arizona.

Irsay left convinced he’d found his man. “Knocked it out of the park,” the owner later said. But afterward, he said little to Ballard, wanting his general manager to make up his own mind. Irsay had given Ballard license to run this coaching search however he saw fit, and after a lengthy meeting with his boss after the Colts’ humiliating, season-ending loss to the Texans on Jan. 9, the GM decided he’d conduct as thorough a process as he could. The thinking: since the Colts weren’t chasing a big fish, like a Sean Payton or a Jim Harbaugh, there was no need to rush it.

“I never understand what the hurry is,” Ballard said Tuesday. “It’s about getting it right. If that meant we needed to interview 50 people, we would have interviewed 50 people.”

It ended up being 13, though the Colts requested 14 before DeMeco Ryans canceled on them at the last minute, then later took the Texans’ job. The process dragged on for five weeks and included 21 total interviews, virtually and in-person, and eight finalists. Steichen’s in-person meeting was the last one, eight days before the Super Bowl. “I’m not going to tell you anything you’re not going to see,” Irsay told Ballard before the GM met with him a day later.

Steichen was sharp, well-spoken and well-prepared, not solely in situational football but when it came to the Colts’ roster construction and flaws. He knew what they were lacking. “Just like they did research on me, I did research on this place,” he said. He laid out his vision, the four pillars he intends to lean on in Indianapolis as he reshapes this franchise: character, preparation, consistency and relentlessness. Sounds like coach-speak, but Steichen’s conviction was evident Tuesday. After he mentioned preparation, he noted that’s where the good teams separate themselves. The Eagles were among the best at it in 2022.

“How we prepare as a football team and an organization Monday through Saturday will ultimately dictate the outcome of the football game,” Steichen vowed. “Now, is it going to guarantee us a victory? No. But it’s going to give us a fighting chance, I promise you that.”

In his new head coach, Irsay wanted offense, mindful that his team needs a quarterback and all but assuredly will be drafting one in the first round in April. The owner also knows this decision was less about 2023 than the years that follow. The Colts are building for the long term — finally — and getting the right head coach in place for when the quarterback of the future arrives was paramount.

The owner felt Steichen had “a lot of that offensive magic,” Irsay said, “which is hard to find in this league.” That side of the ball “can be a little more complex and takes a longer time to develop,” he added. “Knowing we’re going to have a young quarterback to develop, that’s a key factor.”

And speaking of that quarterback … “the Alabama guy doesn’t look bad,” Irsay couldn’t help but mention, a nod to Bryce Young, likely projected to be the first QB off the board come April.

Steichen’s track record speaks to his ability to develop that position. He guided Justin Herbert to Offensive Rookie of the Year honors in 2020 and helped mold Jalen Hurts into an MVP candidate in 2022.

The coach explained Tuesday that vital to his success so far has been matching scheme to the QB’s talents, and not being rigid in approach. He’ll call the plays in Indianapolis, same as his predecessor, Frank Reich, and will begin Wednesday building out the rest of his staff. It was telling Tuesday afternoon that defensive coordinator Gus Bradley and special teams coordinator Bubba Ventrone were on hand for Steichen’s introductory press conference; there’s a good chance both remain in the same roles for 2023.

That would, in theory, allow Steichen the chance to focus on the offense, the unit that sabotaged the Colts’ 2022 season. Indy finished at or near the bottom of the league in every significant offensive metric, and this franchise isn’t going anywhere until it can start scoring more points.

“My philosophy is we’re going to throw to score points and run to win,” Steichen said. “Now, that can look different each week. Sometimes I’ve went into games saying we’re going to throw it a bunch, then we end up running it 45 times. Flow is going to dictate that.”

The scheme, he said, will be built around the quarterback’s strengths. Beyond that, the other areas they can attack defenses. “What does (Michael) Pittman Jr. run well, receiver-wise?” Steichen said. “The tight ends, the backs, Jonathan Taylor, the offensive line, what do they do well? We want to do a hell of a job trying to put our guys in position to make plays.”

Irsay’s optimism was evident. It’s been a chaotic 12 months, marred by impatience and dysfunction, and this felt like a fresh start, a new slate. More significant than that, it felt like the franchise’s top two decision makers — Irsay and Ballard — had come to this decision in unison. Even Jeff Saturday, the interim coach who went 1-7 and had two interviews for the full-time job, chimed in, posting a video on Twitter wishing Steichen luck.

“Wish we would’ve done better, but ultimately that is where it is,” Saturday said. “Wanna wish Coach Steichen the best of luck. For everyone out there — including however many thousand that signed the petition (against hiring him as the full-time coach), which may have included my wife and son, not exactly sure — in all honesty, I’m so grateful for Colts nation, it meant the world for me.”

In reality, Saturday was ruled out as a finalist a few weeks ago. The Colts had their sights set on a different candidate, a new voice for a new era.

The second-biggest decision of the offseason’s been made. The next one comes in April.

(Top photo: Darron Cummings / Associated Press)

Zak Keefer is a national features writer for The Athletic, focusing on the NFL. He previously covered the Indianapolis Colts for nine seasons, winning the Pro Football Writers of America's 2020 Bob Oates Award for beat writing. He wrote and narrated the six-part podcast series "Luck," and is an adjunct professor of journalism at Indiana University. Follow Zak on Twitter @zkeefer