{"id":717049,"date":"2026-01-30T17:39:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T17:39:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/717049\/"},"modified":"2026-01-30T17:39:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T17:39:15","slug":"ranking-coaching-hires-since-2021-where-does-colts-steichen-land","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/717049\/","title":{"rendered":"Ranking coaching hires since 2021; where does Colts’ Steichen land?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jan. 30, 2026, 10:24 a.m. ET<\/p>\n

ESPN’s Bill Barnwell<\/a> set out and ranked the 37 coaching hires across the NFL that took place between 2021 and 2025. So where did the Indianapolis Colts’<\/a> Shane Steichen end up on this list?<\/p>\n

At the top of Barnwell’s list were Dan Campbell, Nick Sirianni, and Mike Macdonald. Steichen was just ahead of the middle of the pack at No. 16.<\/p>\n

“Steichen has built fun, logical offenses for Jones and Richardson over the past few seasons, and the run game has revitalized\u00a0Jonathan Taylor<\/a>‘s career after the star back battled ankle issues,” Barnwell wrote.<\/p>\n

“Still, the former Eagles<\/a> assistant has gone either 8-9 or 9-8 in each of his first three campaigns as a head coach, and that sort of consistent averageness makes him a perfect fit in the middle of this list. He has essentially been a league-average hire.”<\/p>\n

Through three seasons, Steichen has a record of 25-26, and the Colts<\/a> have not had a playoff appearance during that stretch.<\/p>\n

Expert NFL picks: Exclusive betting insights only at USA TODAY.<\/a><\/p>\n

While the results haven’t been there, Steichen’s ability as a game planner and offensive play caller has shined through.<\/p>\n

With up and down quarterback play for two seasons, the Colts often remained in the mix on Sundays. This past year, as Barnwell mentioned, the Colts had a highly productive offense through the first half of the season. Also, the game plans that Steichen built around Phillip Rivers on the fly were quite impressive.<\/p>\n

But with that said, at the end of the day, there haven’t been enough wins for the Colts to get over the playoff hump, and as the leader of this team, that ultimately falls on Steichen’s shoulders, even if there is blame to go around elsewhere.<\/p>\n

From start to finish, and particularly down the stretch of these seasons, the right buttons haven’t been pushed.<\/p>\n

The Colts are running it back in 2026 with Steichen and GM Chris Ballard. There is a belief that the success the team had through 10 games last season can be replicated and sustained.<\/p>\n

Perhaps we’ve finally reached the now-or-never point for the current iteration of the Colts where it is playoffs or bust.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jan. 30, 2026, 10:24 a.m. ET ESPN’s Bill Barnwell set out and ranked the 37 coaching hires across…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":693029,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2059],"tags":[95878,2005,7,2004,392,2381,6,49915,95900,95882,95892,95903,95901,95896,95888,95895,95906,96191,95884,95883,95881],"class_list":{"0":"post-717049","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-indianapolis-colts","8":"tag-accessfree","9":"tag-colts","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-indianapolis","12":"tag-indianapolis-colts","13":"tag-indianapoliscolts","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-sstssportsnflcolts","16":"tag-sstsncolts","17":"tag-tagamerican-football","18":"tag-tagespn-inc","19":"tag-tagindianapolis-colts","20":"tag-tagjonathan-taylor","21":"tag-tagnational-sports","22":"tag-tagnfl","23":"tag-tagnfl-hub","24":"tag-tagoverall-positive","25":"tag-tagphiladelphia-eagles","26":"tag-tagsports-coaching-training","27":"tag-tagsports-news","28":"tag-typestory"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115985276445605423","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=717049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717049\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/693029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=717049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=717049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=717049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}