Should Indianapolis Colts owner Carlie Irsay-Gordon have fired coach Shane Steichen at the end of the 2025 season? Before you answer that question, let me share a bit of NFL trivia with you.
How many Super Bowl-winning coaches this century failed to make the postseason in each of their first three seasons, as has been the case with Steichen in his first three years with the Colts?
To be clear, I’m talking about making the playoffs with the club with whom the coach eventually did win the big game. For some coaches, like Bill Belichick and Peter Carroll, their Super Bowl(s) came on the second or third stop of their coaching journey.
Indianapolis Colts' decision to retain Shane Steichen flies in the face of history
So, I’m not asking about how Belichick did in Cleveland or how Carroll fared with the Jets or Pats. I’m referring to Belichick's first three seasons in New England and Carroll’s first three in Seattle.
What’s your answer?
Seventeen different coaches have won the Lombardi Trophy in the 21st century. Three of them – Belichick, Andy Reid, and Tom Coughlin – have done it more than once.
Would it surprise you if I told you that just two of those 17 had started as poorly as Steichen has in his first three seasons? That’s about 12 percent. Not a great predictor of a championship down the road.
If only if were that high.
You see, the answer to the question above is not two. It’s not one. It’s zero. None of the 17 coaches that went on to win the Super Bowl this century started out with three consecutive non-playoff seasons. And keep in mind that more teams make the playoffs today than did when this particular list began.
This trend may go back much farther. I only looked back to 2000. If something happens 25 times in a row, that does tend to qualify it as a trend. The kind of trend you can bet your pension on and retire quite comfortably.
Roughly half of the coaches in question made the playoffs in their very first season. That includes the last three champions – Nick Siriani, Andy Reid, and Sean McVay. Two of the coaches actually won the Super Bowl in their first season – Jon Gruden and Gery Kubiak. Five others won the Lombardi in their second season.
But every single one of the 17 got to the playoffs at least once in their first three seasons. Most of them did it twice. A couple did it all three years.
Shane Steichen has not been to the playoffs in his first three years with the Colts. And if this is indeed as strong an indicator as it appears to be, he simply is not going to win a championship in Indianapolis.
Here’s another data point to consider. This one does not predict anything, but it is still interesting. Of the seventeen NFL clubs that had losing records in 2025, eight changed their head coach. Another eight brought in a new defensive coordinator, and a staggering 12 clubs will have a new offensive coordinator in 2026.
So of the 51 upper-level coaching positions (head coach, offensive and defensive coordinator), those clubs with losing records made 28 changes. That’s a 55% turnover. The Colts did not change any of their top three coaches.
They are one of just four losing teams to stand pat. One of them, New Orleans, overhauled its coaching staff before the 2025 season. Another, Carolina, made the playoffs last year, despite the losing record.
The only other team with an established head coach and a losing record in 2025 that made no changes was the Cincinnati Bengals. I don’t think you ever want your franchise equated with one run by Mike Brown. But, for the record, their coach, Zac Taylor, did in fact go to the playoffs in his third season at the helm. In fact, he went to the Super Bowl that year.
Steichen has been the picture of mediocrity. 9-8 his first year. 8-9 in his second and third. He had the team headed in a very positive direction in the first half of 2025, cruising into the playoffs. Then it all fell apart.
It certainly was not all Steichen’s fault. The team was hurt by many vital injuries. But things were trending down before QB Daniel Jones got hurt. We’ll never know if Steichen would have corrected things enough to make the postseason.
We only know he didn’t. And we have some pretty clear evidence that if winning the Super Bowl is your ultimate goal, Shane Steichen’s record virtually guarantees that he is not the coach to achieve that in Indianapolis.