Colts owner Jim Irsay tells Ian Rapoport of NFL Media that he doesn’t anticipate making any wholesale changes to the team during the offseason.
“I would say it would be unlikely for any changes to occur, honestly,” Irsay said earlier this week at the league meetings in Houston. “It’s unlikely, but look, we’ll see when we sit down and thoroughly vet the season … We’ll see what happens. Obviously it’s been a disappointing week coming off that loss, but we will get ready for the Vikings and get to 9-7 and see what happens. There’s still hope but we obviously have to win the next three games to maintain that.”
Last year, the expectation was that the Colts would be parting ways with HC Chuck Pagano and/or GM Ryan Grigson. However, Irsay apparently had a change of heart and decided to keep both men in place.
“If you think you can improve your football team, if you think you can do better, if you have a vision as an owner even when you’re having some success, then you think you can make a move that benefits you, you do it,” Irsay said. “But I also believe if you look at what happened in our market for in the five years in the Andrew Luck era, then you say let’s go back to Peyton Manning’s first five years, you have two losing seasons and no playoff wins.”
The way things are shaping up this season, the Colts may have to run the table to get into the playoffs after a disappointing loss to the Texans. Even so, Irsay is sticking by his comparison to how things were when they had Peyton Manning early on his career.
“We compete against ourselves and it’s tough,” Irsay said. “But our administration … is obviously a Hall of Fame administration. I could pull out the articles and let you see them, what they (were) writing in ’02 and early ’03 in the spring. Peyton went through the same thing that we did … as soon as you have success, you’re competing against yourself. This was an extremely disappointing loss, but right now, there’s not focus on change or anything like that. There’s focus on getting better.”
Pagano, 56, was hired as the Colts’ head coach back in 2012. He has led the team to a record of 47 and 30 (61 percent), which includes three playoff appearances and a trip to the AFC Championship game back in 2014.
We’ll have more regarding the Colts and potential changes as the news is available.
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