Chuck Pagano and Ryan Grigson are in final yr of contracts

[The Legend]

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2015/03/26/report-chuck-pagano-enters-lame-duck-season-in-indy/

It amazes me that these guys are lame ducks and the Colts and Jim Irsay might choose to move in a different direction given the amount of building success they have had.

[Everlong]

How much of that success is due to Pagano, though?

Let's be honest, they'd be in a much better situation if they'd kept Bruce Arians, but there's no way they'd have been able to dump Pagano right after he recovered from cancer--it'd have been a PR shitstorm. Pagano hasn't proven himself to be anything other than a guy who can coach an Andrew Luck-led team to the playoffs, and there are plenty of other coaches in the league who could accomplish that same thing.

[The Legend]

How much of that success is due to Pagano, though?

Let's be honest, they'd be in a much better situation if they'd kept Bruce Arians, but there's no way they'd have been able to dump Pagano right after he recovered from cancer--it'd have been a PR shitstorm. Pagano hasn't proven himself to be anything other than a guy who can coach an Andrew Luck-led team to the playoffs, and there are plenty of other coaches in the league who could accomplish that same thing.

Yeah, OK, but that's true of absolutely every coach in the NFL. I mean Bill Belichick's career record as a coach with Tom Brady as his quarterback is 180-55, counting playoffs. His record as a head coach without Tom Brady as his quarterback is 53-63, counting playoffs. This just in, a coach needs a quarterback to be good in today's NFL. Seriously, show me a coach who has gone through an entire season with a bad quarterback and won with that bad quarterback.

There's plenty of coaches that could do worse than Pagano with Andrew Luck as their quarterback - they've advanced further every year than the year before - and there's not many that could do better, the same maybe, but better probably not. If you get rid of Pagano it might not quite be at the level of kicking Jim Harbaugh out the door, but it's not that much better.