Colts fire GM Ryan Grigson, Manning not in the mix to replace him
It's over for Ryan Grigson in Indianapolis.
Colts owner Jim Irsay announced the decision Saturday at the team's headquarters, and furthermore, denied that there were ever any serious negotiations with former quarterback Peyton Manning about a front office position.
"I wouldn't say he's in the picture," Irsay said, who did say he spoke with Manning at the Super Bowl reunion back in November.
Chuck Pagano will coach the team in 2017, Irsay said.
Grigson signed a three-year extension a year ago this month, and was "tied at the hip" to head coach Pagano, Irsay said then.
No more.
"I untied them," Irsay said Saturday.
"I don’t think we ever celebrate a firing," he added. "Ryan was a good man, and anyone who can’t see that is unfortunate. I know emotions go into our game and all that sort of thing. But this man slept at the office. Gave his sweat blood and tears to desperately try to bring us the best game, the best season, the best year he could. I believe his record speaks for itself. And I’m excited for the future."
Irsay repeatedly defended Grigson's accomplishments, and it was obvious how fond he was of Grigson, whom he plucked from the Eagles' front office staff in 2012 to run his franchise overhaul.
Five years later, Irsay has cut ties.
"This is the move that we needed to make," Irsay said. "I made it slowly, cautiously, prudently, because it’s a big decision. I prefer continuity. But this move was the right move. And there’s excitement in people’s eyes in the building today, in talking to Chuck Pagano and Jimmy Raye III and others. A lot of excitement and a tinge of sadness in leaving someone behind that worked so tirelessly to bring Colts fans a championship."
Raye III is currently the Colts' Vice President of Football Operations. Irsay said he will interview for the general manager vacancy.
More than one Colts player expressed his relief at the firing.
"I knew something had to happen," said one player. "I just didn't know what and when."
All-Pro punter Pat McAfee chimed in, and made it clear his feelings on the Colts' former general manager.
"Unwanted arrogance just walked into a brick wall called karma," McAfee tweeted.
Pagano offered this statement after Grigson's firing: “I’m grateful for the opportunity Ryan gave me. We shared many great memories, moments and victories together over the past five years. I wish nothing but the best for Ryan and his family moving forward.”
What sank Grigson after a sterling three-year start that included 33 regular season wins, three playoff victories and a trip to the 2014 AFC Championship Game was two consecutive disappointing seasons, a pair of 8-8 campaigns that saw the Colts miss the playoffs in back-to-back years for the first time in nearly two decades. This isn’t a franchise accustomed to sitting at home in January – yet that’s exactly where this team found itself the past two years.
It became obvious as the 2016 season wore on: The Colts were a team in regression, a team with an incomplete and imperfect roster paying dearly for the free agent gaffes and draft whiffs of the past few years.
With a healthy Andrew Luck returning under center in 2016, armed with a historic $140 million contract extension, hope resurfaced at West 56th Street. The Colts never capitalized. A disastrous start – Indianapolis began the year 2-4 – derailed their playoff hopes early. In December, before the Colts put the final nail in the coffin in December, losing lost at home to Houston with the AFC South lead on the line.
Their playoff hopes officially died two weeks later in Oakland. Most damning for Grigson’s case to remain in his current role: In the fifth year of the Luck era, the Colts weren’t able to win a weak division and seem as far as ever away from those multiple Super Bowl championships Irsay so desperately wants.
The owner certainly did not come to this decision lightly. Citing “continuity” more than once last year as a principal reason as to why he kept Grigson and Pagano, Irsay routinely stressed that he was looking long-term, that he believed the Colts were “close.”
“The Horseshoe has meant excellence on the field, and we expect to achieve (that) and expectations are high,” Irsay told USA Today in December. “And there’s no question about that, and we’re disappointed. But I move slowly, cautiously, prudently. I believe in continuity.”
And yet, 19 days after Black Monday, Irsay has come to the decision that continuity cannot last.
He made it clear Saturday: It’s time for a change.
The night he re-signed Pagano and Grigson, Irsay admitted, “I could have walked someone in that door with an eight-figure (salary) a year and say, ‘I’m making a big splash. If that was the best for us, I would do it. (Pagano) is a great coach. (Bill) Polian is going to the Hall of Fame, and Ryan’s outdone him in his first four years.”
It’s an argument Irsay often leaned on, but a flawed one. The stark difference between the first five years of Polian’s tenure as Colts president and Grigson’s first five as general manager is where the team sits at that five-year benchmark. By 2002, Tony Dungy’s first in Indianapolis as coach, the Colts were climbing, on the brink of nine straight playoff appearances and seven straight 12-win seasons.
Grigson’s Colts have plummeted to mediocrity and haven’t won a big game since 2014.
Beyond the porous offensive line – a continual headache for this franchise since the day Luck walked in the building – the greatest indictment of the job Pagano has done rests with the defense. Put simply: There has been no progress. What was envisioned as Pagano’s strong suit when he arrived from Baltimore in 2012, where he was coordinator of the Ravens’ bruising unit, has been a weakness for five seasons.
“We wanna be aggressive, we wanna dictate the tempo,” Pagano said during his introductory news conference.
It never happened.
The Colts have never found their way into the league’s Top 10 in total defense, ranking below 20th in four out of his five seasons. They slumped to 30th overall in 2016, their lowest since Pagano arrived.
After winning the league’s Executive of the Year honors his first season in Indianapolis, Grigson failed to surround Luck with enough talent to keep the Colts competitive in the AFC. He routinely swung and missed in free agency, dishing out lucrative deals to aging veterans who never produced (LaRon Landry, Todd Herremans, Donald Thomas, Greg Toler, Art Jones, Andre Johnson). And, let's be honest, the list is even longer than that.
The draft was even more damaging: Bjoern Werner, the team’s first-round pick in 2013, didn’t make it to a see his fourth season. Hugh Thornton. Khaled Holmes. D’Joun Smith.
Most telling: Three years after the completion of that 2013 draft, not a single player from that draft was left on the Colts’ roster. And, of course, there’s always the Trent Richardson trade.
Also among the perplexing moves: Drafting wide receiver Phillip Dorsett in the first round of the 2015 draft when it was plain as day the Colts needed help on defense. Dorsett has done little to validate the pick two years into his career.
All told the Colts went 49-31 under Grigson in five seasons.
Now Irsay looks to a new man to lead his football team.
Call Star reporter Zak Keefer at (317) 444-6134 and follow him on Twitter: @zkeefer.