Stampede Blue
Indianapolis, IN — When Shane Steichen was brought in to be the next head coach of the Indianapolis Colts, he had quite the journey ahead of him. Returning to square one after developing quarterbacks Justin Herbert and Jalen Hurts into the basis of what they’ve become, respectively, Steichen’s uphill battle as a first-time head coach has been nothing short of lesson-worthy.
From day one, Steichen’s offensive genius has rubbed off on the Colts, for better or worse. His creative, modern concepts have been an exciting change since the jump, and so have his game within the game shenanigans that oftentimes result in the opposing head coach burning a timeout. Regardless of his determined, enthusiastic demeanor, Steichen’s growing pains as a young head coach have been apparent.
Steichen’s fluent coachspeak has rubbed fans the wrong way at times. Most notably, how he and the rest of the Colts handled Anthony Richardson’s early-career development. Given that it has since been revealed that a greater organizational dysfunction played the biggest part in such unpreparedness, we must remind ourselves that there are two sides to every coin, and Anthony Richardson did not hold up his end of the bargain, either.
Regardless of how the first two years had gone, Steichen’s youth as a head coach in other areas, such as clock and/or late-game management, has resurfaced as recently as last week versus the Denver Broncos. The third-year head coach had elected to play for a field goal in the 60-yard range, and although kicker Spencer Shrader hadn’t missed at the time, his career-long to date was 45 yards. It was a boneheaded decision that the football Gods turned a blind eye to, and Shane Steichen has since admitted he was at fault, but the jury is still out, for some fans and analysts, on whether his coaching woes are mere slips up or smaller pieces of a greater issue.
For as much nitpicking that can be done, Shane Steichen has this Colts team, not just the offense, firing on all cylinders through three weeks of the 2025-26 season. Singling out the offense, however, invites a fun exercise in itself. The 2025 Colts offense isn’t just off to a hot start, it’s off to one of the hottest starts in NFL history, and that’s thanks in big part to the mindset that Steichen wanted to instill into the organization when he was hired.
When he was hired, Steichen explained that his offensive philosophy was to “throw to score points and run to win.” So far this season, that mindset has materialized into an all-time efficient unit. The Colts are the best offense in the NFL on early downs (1st/2nd), thus making life easier on themselves on the back half of any downs-to-go scenario, but the red zone has resulted in the offense’s only struggle thus far.
Entering Week 3, the Colts were first in the NFL in average yards to gain on both 2nd (6.6 yards) and 3rd down (5.3 yards), thanks to the aforementioned...
