Patience of Colts’ Jim Irsay ‘Growing Thin’ as GM Decision Nears

The Indianapolis Colts will have a decision to make with interim head coach Jeff Saturday, but the franchise faces another important decision this offseason at general manager.

Colts owner Jim Irsay has repeatedly stated GM Chris Ballard will remain in his position next year. But Irsay has praised people in his organization before and then fired him. The best latest example was with Frank Reich, who Irsay pretty much endorsed a little more than a week prior to his firing.

In addition to that recent record, The Athletic’s Zak Keefer reported on December 19 that Irsay’s patience “is growing thin.”

“Irsay fired Reich 15 months after giving him a lengthy extension,” Keefer wrote. “The owner has long resisted making decisions driven on emotion, mindful of the mistakes his father made and how it crippled the franchise for years. But his team is getting worse, and his patience is growing thin.”

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Distrust Growing in Colts Organization

Keefer has made this point in a lot of his articles this season — the Colts have made three major decisions within the last year. With all three of those decisions, Irsay had a major say.

The first of which was Irsay pushing for the Colts to depart with quarterback Carson Wentz and explore trading for another stopgap signal caller. The second was benching Matt Ryan for Sam Ehlinger in Week 8.

Keefer argued that Irsay is becoming more involved because there isn’t another member of the organization he trusts.

“The drastic midseason moves, driven by an increasingly impatient owner, speak to a growing lack of trust Irsay has in those around him,” Keefer wrote. “He didn’t trust anybody on his coaching staff — despite two former head coaches (Gus Bradley and John Fox) already in the building — to do the job.

“He instead hired Saturday, who was not Ballard’s top choice, and whose coaching experience consisted of a 20-16 record in three seasons at Hebron Christian Academy outside of Atlanta.”

The last example of Irsay’s involvement was hiring Saturday, which is an experiment not going particularly well.

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Irsay Called to Do ‘Less Meddling’

This is an overgeneralization, but typically, owner involvement in the day-to-day operations is not a good thing in the NFL. The best teams in the league usually leave “on-the-field” decisions to the football experts — general manager, head coach and the scouting department.

Sports Illustrated’s Drake Walley argued in a column on December 9 that the Colts will not experience success again until Irsay stops “meddling” in major football decisions.

The Colts have the fourth-most victories in the NFL since Irsay became the franchise’s primary owner in 1997. That is a testament to Irsay’s leadership.

But in most of those years, he had Hall of Fame members — general manager Bill Polian and head coach Tony Dungy — in the Colts organization to depend on. Obviously, the Colts were also home to quarterbacks Peyton Manning and Andrew Luck for 21 years.

It will be interesting to see if Irsay gives Ballard another chance to move back into his inner circle of trust in 2023. According to Keefer, he’s not in that right now.

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