Derek Schultz: Comfortable Colts—Jim Irsay says he’s frustrated, but his actions show otherwise

For the fourth straight season, the Indianapolis Colts are heading home before the NFL playoffs begin.

Following a trivial overtime win over a bad Jaguars team last Sunday, Colts players greeted a sideline camera with some last messages to fans before heading to the locker room. Several players, who have been with the team the last few years and failed to win anything tangible, smiled and waved. First-time Pro Bowler Zaire Franklin folded his arms and posed for a minute, content with a meaningless victory over the doormat-type team he said he wanted to face on his podcast.

Once a half-empty Lucas Oil Stadium was fully cleared for the final time this season, team owner Jim Irsay released a statement affirming that General Manager Chris Ballard and head coach Shane Steichen would both return next season. In that statement, Irsay said there is a “high standard” and that he is “impatient” and “frustrated” with his organization’s shortcomings, yet the core of the team that has failed to meet that standard remains the same.

Some were shocked and angered by the decision to keep the status quo. While the anger was understandable, I don’t know why anyone would be shocked by Irsay, who is in the business of granting chances, granting more chances.

Ballard, as always, was first in the Irsay chances line. Like a cat, the embattled GM gets his ninth life with just two playoff berths—the most recent coming four years ago—and one postseason win in his eight seasons. His teams have floated in the 7-9 win purgatory of the NFL’s mediocre middle in four of the last six years, narrowly missing (but still missing) the playoffs in each of those campaigns. The long-held excuse of Andrew Luck’s retirement weeks before the 2019 season expired a long time ago, and even giving Ballard grace for the immediate period that followed, his Colts teams are just 30-37-1 since the start of the 2021 season.

The players he has accumulated over that near decade of service will largely remain, too. Quenton Nelson, a draft pick from Ballard’s second season who has started in one playoff win, remains a core pillar. DeForest Buckner, who played in a Super Bowl in his last game with the 49ers but has yet to even participate in Wild Card Weekend with the Colts, has two years remaining on his deal. Franklin, as well as Jonathan Taylor, Michael Pittman Jr., Kenny Moore and Grover Stewart, all signed extensions before the season and aren’t going anywhere.

Despite repeatedly bungling the messaging behind his quarterback’s status and his locker room’s accountability, Steichen was also given more rope. After an encouraging debut in 2023 where he squeezed nine wins out of Gardner Minshew and a Colts team with little preseason expectations, Steichen’s encore season went in the opposite direction, as he oftentimes looked as if he were in over his head and grasping for answers while his team backslid throughout 2024.

Sure, the Colts ultimately moved on from defensive coordinator Gus Bradley, whose unit fell apart one too many times after that fateful defeat to the hapless Giants in the penultimate week of the season, and some position coaches are likely to leave or be changed out on that side of the ball, too. There will also be some player subtractions through free agency—farewell, Julian Blackmon and E.J. Speed—and additions, as well as a new draft class to welcome in late April, but Team Run It Back is pretty much running it back.

So much for that high standard.

If we’re to take Irsay at his word, and division titles and playoff runs are the expectation, why does he allow his entire operation to routinely fall short of that bar?

By allowing things to largely remain as they are, Irsay is trusting Ballard’s process even though that process has produced just one tangible result—an opening-round playoff win over Houston in January 2019—in nearly a decade. He is trusting a locker room full of veteran players who have largely never won anything meaningful during their time in Indianapolis to suddenly win. He’s trusting a head coach who might be decent with a play sheet in his hand but clearly struggles with the CEO-type aspects of being a successful team leader in dealing with the media, public and his own locker room. He’s also trusting an unsteady 22-year old quarterback who completed fewer than half of his pass attempts and committed the unforgivable sin of asking out of a game.

Regardless of what the owner says, quarterbacks tapping out, general managers refusing to evolve, and starters not facing any competition or consequence shows that everyone at West 56th Street is comfortable exactly where they are. Save your job, keep your spot, cash that check—churning out middling seasons is enough for the boss to keep those things coming for his front office, coaches and players. Onward to 2025!

Looking ahead to next season, if you’re to have any optimism at all about these Colts, it would have to be attached to Richardson making a jump. However, his sophomore season evaporated most of that optimism—the aforementioned tap-out in Houston was a low point, but besides his maturity concerns, there are the omnipresent accuracy and availability concerns, too. Richardson would have to take a historic leap in his third season to even rise to the level of league-average quarterback, much less a franchise-level one. He’ll have to be a threat with both his arm and his legs on the field, while also immersing himself in the grind that every elite quarterback commits to off of it.

And, hey, maybe that will happen.

Maybe Ballard will jerk the wheel on his eight-year philosophy of team building and aggressively try to improve the team through free agency. Perhaps Taylor, Nelson and other guys who have never led or won are now going to lead and win, while players like Franklin and Richardson suddenly grow up. Steichen said, “I need to be better,” after virtually every press conference this entire season, so he’s bound to actually get better, right?

It’s been eight years of mostly rudderless leadership under Ballard and 10 years since the Colts were last a serious championship contender. This fan base, which has been overly patient and understanding throughout the constant post-Luck tumult this organization has put them through, deserves better, but for another season, Irsay is placing his trust in the existing Colts leadership and personnel to turn the franchise around.

The only question is, why should Colts fans trust him?•

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From Peyton Manning’s peak with the Colts to the Pacers’ most recent roster makeover, Schultz has talked about it all as a sports personality in Indianapolis for more than 15 years. Besides his written work with IBJ, he’s active in podcasting and show hosting. You can follow him on X @Schultz975.