The Indianapolis Colts still have to play one final game in the 2016 season and still have to make the decision on whether to fire general manager Ryan Grigson and head coach Chuck Pagano, but that doesn’t stop the talk about who might replace them.
One of the very hottest names on the coaching market this offseason will be Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels, and it sounds like he might be interested in the Colts job should it come open. On today’s CBS pregame show, Jason La Canfora said that the 49ers are interested in McDaniels, but that “McDaniels will be most interested in the Lions, the Colts, and the Rams job.”
Of course, at the moment only one of those three jobs is currently open (Rams), but it’s possible the Colts and Lions (if they miss the playoffs) jobs could come open as well. For McDaniels, though, they all make sense, and here’s why: they all have quarterbacks in place. The Colts have Andrew Luck, the Lions have Matthew Stafford, and the Rams have Jared Goff. So all three of those teams have invested a lot in the quarterback position, and an offensive coach like McDaniels would obviously value that quite a bit.
Wherever McDaniels winds up going, it would be his second stint as a head coach. He was the head coach of the Denver Broncos from 2009-2010 and went 11-17, not even finishing his second year as a coach. Things didn’t work out for him in Denver, but based on what he’s done with Tom Brady and the Patriots offense, it seems incredibly likely that someone will give him another chance.
Whether or not the Colts have mutual interest in McDaniels is unknown, but it’s likely that a lot of potential coaches share similar feelings to McDaniels about the Indianapolis job. The opportunity to enter a situation with Andrew Luck at quarterback will make the Colts job one of the most intriguing on the market if Jim Irsay does in fact make a change.