What the Colts Firing Their GM Means for HC Shane Steichen’s Job Security

Six weeks. That's all it took for Indianapolis Colts owner Carlie Irsay-Gordon to look across at the Tennessee Titans sideline, watch them notch their first win of the season in her building, and decide something had to give.

General manager Chris Ballard, a friend of the show, was relieved of his duties on Monday. Rich walked through the team's statement, which thanked Ballard before getting to what he called "the money paragraph."

"As I said at the start of the season, the sense of urgency has never been higher," the statement read. "Our standard is to compete for championships and I believe a change in leadership is necessary to meet that standard. Making this change during the season was a deliberate decision. Waiting would only delay the important work that needs to begin now."

And then the line that matters for everyone left in the building: "This decision does not change our goals for the season. We have a lot of football in front of us and I expect to compete, improve and win football games."

Which means Shane Steichen should look out. The head coach of the 2-4 Colts, Rich said, now needs to go on a Steve Fisher type run, 1989 style, to keep his job.

The core problem, in Rich's view, is simple. "They got to get better play from their quarterback. That's it." It doesn't help that Tyler Warren got hurt. And the list of expensive Ballard decisions that haven't paid off kept growing as the studio talked through it: trading away Pittman, drafting Anthony Richardson, two first-round picks for Sauce Gardner, who is now week to week with an injury, and a big deal for Alec Pierce, who is out for the season.

Those moves were expensive in dollars, capital and draft choices, and they are not working out. When you're 2-4 in the middle of your second two-game losing streak, and one of your best acquisitions, DeForest Buckner, is saying things like this after the game, it's trouble. "I'm pissed off, too," Buckner said. "I'm sick and tired of the same song and dance every year."

Rich pushed back on the narrative around the owner, too. So much is made of Irsay-Gordon taking notes on the sideline, but this is not her first rodeo. Her father was at the top of the flowchart when he was alive. She knows about the roster decisions when they're made, she knows what's being asked of people, and if somebody isn't executing, she hears it. "She's informed, and she's in charge," Rich said.

That's exactly why the pressure on Steichen is real. If he doesn't go on a run, Rich doesn't see a scenario where the Colts hire a new general manager and tell that person they have to keep the coach. Who signs up for a team without first-round picks, a highly paid receiver who has barely played, an unresolved quarterback situation, and a coach they're forced to inherit? "That might be a hard pass for some," Rich said.

So can the Colts go on that run? The schedule doesn't help early. Rich noted the next two trips, at Minnesota and at Jacksonville, are against defenses that eat mistake-prone quarterbacks "for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. With a Chianti." Someone in the studio supplied the fava beans.

After that comes a bit of a reprieve with Dallas and Miami, then a trip to Houston. Rich's path forward was clear: win games you're not supposed to win, and sweep the team that's the hottest in your division right now, the Texans. Then win the division games the rest of the way, including two against Tennessee and a finale against Jacksonville. Home for Cincinnati and the trip to Minnesota are the kind of upsets they'll need.

But do they have the horses? Through six weeks, it doesn't look like it. And Rich imagined that's exactly what the owner saw when she looked down at her notes. The same third-quarter thing, the same first-quarter thing from a few weeks ago, all of it showing up again in a home loss to a team that had trouble tying its shoelaces. They're going to come into our house and breathe new life into their organization? Then, as Rich put it, she was going to breathe new life into hers.