What grade were Colts given for hiring Shane Steichen?

The Indianapolis Colts are moving forward with Shane Steichen as their head coach. How have NFL experts graded the hire of Steichen?

On the morning of the Super Bowl, when it was announced that the Indianapolis Colts were planning to hire Shane Steichen to be the team’s next head coach, fans erupted with excitement. Steichen was about to lead one of the league’s best offenses into the Super Bowl and then would be heading to Indianapolis. How could fans not be excited? Once the hire became official, the excitement grew immensely.

Every one thought of the ways the offensive-minded Steichen would be able to revitalize an Indianapolis offense that was horrid last season. Additionally, people raved about the impact Steichen has had on young quarterbacks and started to wonder which quarterback he’s most interested in drafting as he embarks on this journey as a head coach.

Now that the dust has settled, let’s take a look at how the Steichen hire was graded by an outside expert. Fans have great reason to be excited but was this an A+ hire or could Indy have possibly had a better hire? Tyler Sullivan from CBS Sports answered this in a recent piece where he graded all five coaching hires. For Steichen and the Colts, Sullivan gave Indianapolis a B for the hire.

Colts hire of Shane Steichen graded a B

Sullivan explained that Steichen is far more experienced than Jeff Saturday so that alone should have fans excited. He also highlighted how Shane Steichen is great with young quarterbacks and that should bode well for the Colts since they are about to embark on the journey of having a young quarterback. However, Sullivan didn’t offer any reasons why Steichen’s hire was only graded as a B and not anything higher.

Sullivan did admit that it’ll be years before we can accurately grade and judge hires, and that’s the ultimate point. It doesn’t really matter how excited or critical people are of the Shane Steichen hire, what he does in the coming years will set the narrative. If he leads the Colts to a bunch of wins and a Super Bowl, everyone will look back and applaud Indianapolis for hiring him.

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