Doyel: Indianapolis Colts have a rising star, and his name is Shane Steichen
Do you remember where you were, when you fell in love? I do. It was Sunday afternoon, roughly 2 p.m. – OK, it was 2:03 p.m. on the dot – and I was watching the Indianapolis Colts play the Baltimore Ravens.
Colts ball, fourth-and-goal from the 7. Indianapolis coach Shane Steichen does that thing he does, sending out his field-goal team and then changing his mind and rushing his quarterback back onto the field. He did it last week against Houston, forcing the Texans to use one of their timeouts, then nodded and gave a thumb’s up – his work here done – and returned the kicking team for a field goal.
He was doing it again Sunday at Baltimore, fourth-and-goal from the 7, Colts kicker Matt Gay preparing to kick a 26-yard field goal, when quarterback Gardner Minshew II comes hurrying back onto the field – forcing Ravens coach John Harbaugh to call a timeout.
Follow me, because it’s about to get really weird.
Baltimore calls timeout, as I’ve said, so Steichen gives up the charade and puts his kicking team back onto the field. He’s achieved what he wanted to achieve, costing the Ravens one of their three timeouts, so here’s Gay again, lining up for his 26-yard WAIT A MINUTE WHAT’S HAPPENING NOW?
Minshew is leading the Colts offense back onto the field, and the kicking team is coming off, and it’s hilarious and the Baltimore crowd is murmuring and what on earth? That’s how it feels to you and me and 70,038 fans at M&T Bank Stadium and the announcers on CBS, but John Harbaugh’s been around the block a few times. He knows NFL rules allow him a counter-substitution here, so he summons the biggest, slowest player on his roster – 6-7, 309-pound defensive tackle Brent Urban – to enter the game.
Urban leaves the sideline, heads for the line of scrimmage, and he’s just … barely … moving.
Now the play clock is ticking below 10 seconds, below five, below 3-2-1 … flag. Delay of game on the Colts. Steichen’s subterfuge doesn’t work a second time, so he makes another line change – his third or fourth mass substitution of the play, not sure anymore, why are you asking – and pulls his offense off the field again. The kicking team returns, and Gay kicks what is now a 31-yard field goal.
That’s when it happens. Steichen is striding down the sideline, away from the line of scrimmage, away from the anarchy he has created, and he’s looking toward the Baltimore sideline. He makes eye contact with Ravens defensive backs coach Dennard Wilson, a friend from their days together on the Philadelphia coaching staff, and Steichen smiles.
Then he shrugs.
Almost immediately the Colts’ crack social media team edits that moment of national television magic into a five-second clip, and shares it on the team’s official Twitter site. The clip posts at 2:03 p.m., and I’m not afraid to say this: I was in love.
And so were you.
Inside a key team meeting and changes in Football nerd Shane Steichen getting Colts to believe
Managing the Jonathan Taylor snakepit
He’s getting more comfortable here. Shane Steichen is, I’m saying. He’s growing into his role as head coach in the NFL, and you can imagine what a shock that move must be at first. He goes from the shadows of Philadelphia, where he served as offensive coordinator – quick, what do you know about Colts OC Jim Bob Cooter other than his giggly name? – to the spotlight in Indianapolis, one of 32 NFL head coaches in the world, the centerpiece of a multiple press conferences weekly.
Steichen goes from doing whatever Eagles coach Nick Sirianni wants to doing what he wants, and having a say over any damn thing he likes. Steichen takes it seriously, helping with details as small as the pictures on the wall around the team’s facility on 56th Street to details as large as hiring a staff. He spent days just on the hire of Tony Sparano Jr. as his offensive line coach, and there were close to two dozen more hires.
The Shane Steichen who showed up here was stiff, guarded, robotic – and again, this is me shouting: I understand! That Shane Steichen, bless his heart, walked into a rattlesnake pit of Jonathan Taylor’s creation, facing questions that grew louder and angrier about the immediate fate of one of the best players on his team.
That version of Shane Steichen, bless him, tried to have it both ways.
Steichen’s a nice guy. Don’t be fooled by his Ichabod Crane look, all long limbs and dark features and severe facial expressions. Steichen can still be that guy – more on that in a minute, and Jonathan Taylor, I’d suggest you pay attention when we get there – but a coach like Steichen, one without name recognition when he enters the profession, doesn’t rise the NFL ranks this far, this fast, without an abundance of brains and charisma.
So Steichen steps into the JT nightmare, and he steps in it and he steps in it, because he’s trying to have it both ways. He probably doesn’t understand what on earth Taylor is thinking, and he definitely doesn’t want to share what little he does know with the world, so he tells reporters unhelpful things like, “Right now he’s on this football team” and “when the medical staff clears him he should be out there.”
That was training camp, when Steichen was still settling in. Now? These are his news conferences, and he’ll say what he wants, and we can deal with it. A few days ago, tired of being asked after every game if Taylor was somewhere in attendance, he said he wouldn’t take any more questions on the subject until Taylor comes off the Physically Unable to Perform List.
But there was a reporter on Monday, doing what we do – wasn’t me, but I’m not clowning the reporter for trying – and asking if Taylor was in Baltimore for the game.
“Like I said,” Steichen said, “I’m going to refrain from getting into that stuff about J.T. He’ll be off PUP in (a few) weeks and I’ll take questions then.”
He didn’t smile. Didn’t even give us a shrug.
Loved it anyway.
He's a goofball, and he's dead serious
Steichen can be a goofball. You hear the story from The Price is Right? Steichen and some high school buddies from Sacramento went to the studios in Los Angeles about 20 years ago to see if they could get onto the show. And Steichen did! They’re in the audience with nametags on their shirt when the show’s announcer bellows:
Shane Steichen, come on down!
Steichen’s bounding down there to contestant row and making bids on whatever’s for sale. He never makes a winning bid to advance onto the stage with Bob Barker, but can you imagine? Shane Steichen, contestant, The Price is Right?
Whatever Colts owner Jim Irsay paid for the guy, he got a bargain. That’s the only way to look at this, three games into the season. The Colts are 2-1, in first place in the AFC South after stunning Baltimore in Baltimore, and I wasn’t wrong during the preseason when I called this roster the worst I’ve seen since getting here in 2014.
Steichen has maximized what he has. This is like watching a game of blackjack, seeing some poor sap draw an eight and a seven, and win with 15 anyway. Twice in three hands!
And the players already love the guy. He gave everyone in the locker room a game ball after the win last week at Houston, their first win of the season, but the room came unglued when DeForest Buckner gave Steichen a game ball to commemorate his first win as an NFL coach.
Players aren’t so different from sports writers. We love charm, yes, and we love discipline. We love straight shooters who speak their truth with sincerity, and Steichen’s doing it. It’s little things like saying no to any more Jonathan Taylor questions, and bigger things like replacing starting cornerback Darrell Baker Jr. – not just benching him, but de-activating him – with rookie JuJu Brents, and enormous things like cutting unproductive running back Deon Jackson after two games.
(Technically Colts general manager Chris Ballard cut Jackson, but Steichen’s fingerprints were on that move as well.)
He’s not fooling around, Steichen, and this is where I’m suggesting Jonathan Taylor pay close attention. This man does not care what you did two years ago, Taylor, nor should he. Two years ago he was helping prepare the Eagles for a Super Bowl run. Two years ago Taylor was leading the NFL in rushing but not leading the Colts into the playoffs. And the thrift-store discovery the Colts are playing at running back, Zack Moss, just ran for 122 yards on 30 carries against Baltimore.
If I’m Taylor’s agent – that moron – I’m urging Taylor to get back into the building daily, back on the sideline for games, and back into the good graces of a head coach who’s getting more and more comfortable in his surroundings. Steichen is stealing timeouts from a rookie coach like DeMeco Ryans of Houston and a Super Bowl winner like John Harbaugh of Baltimore. He’s redecorating the Colts’ facility, answering only the questions he wants to answer, and taking zero grief from any of us.
Colts fans are falling in love – check the response to that Colts’ tweet of his Sunday shrug – and I must say, they have exquisite taste.
Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar or at www.facebook.com/greggdoyelstar.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Colts: City falling in love with coach Shane Steichen, for good reason
