Shane Steichen is playing with fire while Colts’ playoff hopes are on the line

The Indianapolis Colts started the 2025 season off as one of the strongest teams in the league. There were concerns from doubters that the success was only due to an easy schedule during the first half of the season, and after Week 12, fans might be inclined to agree.

In a must-win game at Arrowhead Stadium, the Colts fell to the Kansas City Chiefs. While the defense performed well, Daniel Jones and the offense could do absolutely nothing, particularly in the second half. And notably, head coach Shane Steichen made the mind-boggling decision not to use the absolute best player on his roster: Jonathan Taylor.

To literally no one's surprise, that decision massively backfired. While Taylor sat unutilized on the sideline, Jones struggled, and the Colts lost. The Steichen-Jones hot streak from earlier in the season appears to have cooled down, and it seems fans might be getting the same old problems with their head coach once again.

Shane Steichen’s same old mistakes are starting to cost the Colts at the worst possible time

In his post-game presser, Steichen spoke about the game, and everything he said was incredibly familiar: it's on him, he needs to do better, blah blah blah. They're all things we've heard before, especially in similar circumstances from last season.

“Yeah, I think being efficient on first and ten, at times we did that, but we didn’t do it enough in the second half," he said. "It wasn’t good enough. It starts with myself."

On the Chiefs' defense keeping Taylor contained in the few moments he was on the field, Steichen again said, "We had some backer run-throughs, is what it looked like on a few of those. We gotta go back and look at those and get those cleaned up, and that starts with me."

He further reiterated that point when asked about the offensive imbalance, with Steichen choosing to focus on passing rather than rushing. "I felt there was a lot of stuff that I wanted to get called that I felt good about in the past game, and we just weren't efficient doing it, and it starts with me," he said again.

Seriously: Raise your hand if you've heard this all before.

Steichen and Jones indeed got into a good rhythm early in the season... but, as skeptics have said, their schedule was much easier. Was that why they were so successful, or was it that Steichen hadn't fallen back in love with his own playbook, to the detriment of his own team?

This is not the first time Steichen has faced such criticism. Last season, with both Anthony Richardson and Joe Flacco struggling throughout 2024, with little help from Steichen. He's been slammed for prioritizing his playbook over his players, and when it inevitably fails, fans hear the same thing: it's on me, I need to do better.

And yet somehow, he continues to do the same thing, over and over again. Focusing on the brilliant plays in your playbook doesn't work if your players can't execute them... and it especially doesn't work if it means sidelining your best player.

This is hardly the time for Steichen to go stupid. The Colts have a real chance at being a legitimate Super Bowl contender this year, and Steichen is destroying that chance.

Not only have the Colts very possibly lost the top seed for the AFC, but they could very well end up getting knocked out of playoff contention altogether, with both the Jacksonville Jaguars and the Houston Texans hot on the Colts' heels.

Steichen is right that he needs to do better, but his saying so means nothing when fans hear it after every single bad game. At what point does he stop saying it and actually do it?