According to Rotoworld’s Patrick Daugherty, despite his team failing to make the playoffs again, Indianapolis Colts head coach Shane Steichen improved from 20th to 15th year-to-year in their latest 2026 NFL head coach rankings :
15. Shane Steichen, Colts
Career Record: 25-26 (.490)
With The Colts Since: 2023
Last Year’s Ranking: 20We are trying to answer an either/or question with Shane Steichen. Does he deserve credit for keeping a dysfunctional franchise on the tracks, or blame for remaining mired at .500? I tend to believe
the former, but it’s easy to indulge in the latter after Indy started 8-2 last season only to collapse out of the playoffs before Week 18 even started. It is inarguable that things could be worse in Indy. But how does Steichen make things better than his current 8-9, 9-8 carousel? Talk inevitably turns to things beyond Steichen’s control. Were GM Chris Ballard’s “lost years” more about late owner Jim Irsay than himself? Will new owner Carlie Irsay-Gordon run a more traditional operation, giving Steichen more stability and leeway? The early returns on both of those questions are “no” after last November’s hyper-aggressive, ultimately ill-considered trade for Sauce Gardner. Indy now lacks the draft capital it needs to get out of quarterback purgatory. That probably ultimately means Steichen’s Colts tenure will get hit with an incomplete grade and we might not get a final answer on his coaching ability until he is recycled elsewhere.
Limited because of injuries and inconsistency at the starting quarterback position, the Colts have not made the playoffs under Steichen during his first three seasons and are fresh off another disappointing 8-9 campaign.
Steichen, who clearly supported selecting Anthony Richardson with the 4th overall pick of the 2023 NFL Draft, is certainly not blameless in the continued turnstile that has been the Colts starting quarterback position. However, he’s had to game plan for a number of different starting quarterbacks during his first three seasons as Colts head coach, including Richardson, Gardner Minshew, Joe Flacco, Daniel Jones, Philip Rivers, and Riley Leonard.
What helped Steichen’s cause last year and likely why he improved in these annual rankings, is that Colts starting quarterback Daniel Jones was in the midst of a career year—playing in Steichen’s quarterback friendly Indy offense. Even when Jones went down with a season-ending Achilles injury, both unretired 44-year-old veteran quarterback Philip Rivers and rookie Riley Leonard were able to also have relative success in relief of Jones.
In fact, with Jones missing the Colts’ last four starts of the regular season, under Steichen, Indianapolis still finished with a Top 10 NFL offense, averaging the 8th most points scored at 27.4 average points per game.
Despite the lack of meaningful success as of late, the Colts ownership, particularly team owner and CEO Carlie Irsay-Gordon, seem to have a lot of clear conviction in Steichen. While 2026 is shaping up to be a ‘make-or-break’ year for both him and longtime general manager Chris Ballard, it’s clear that if the Colts had gotten rid of Steichen, the 40-year-old young offensive minded head coach would’ve had a soft landing elsewhere, maybe as another team’s NFL head coach, or at the very least, as the Philadelphia Eagles offensive coordinator again.
