Shane Steichen MUST Nail OL Coach Hire

The Indianapolis Colts have their new head coach in Shane Steichen. The next order of business is finding the perfect offensive line coach to pair with him.

The Indianapolis Colts reportedly have their new head coach, as Philadelphia Eagles' Offensive Coordinator Shane Steichen will be flying into Indianapolis today to finalize his deal with the team (per ESPN's Adam Schefter).

This is a monumental hire for the team, and it follows the recent trend of success in the NFL. The current flow of the league is to hire a young offensive mind and allow them to design a capable offense for an effective quarterback. We have seen this model work to varying degrees of success in Philadelphia (Nick Sirianni), Los Angeles (Sean McVay), Cincinnati (Zac Taylor), Green Bay (Matt LaFluer), San Francisco (Kyle Shanahan), and many other places.

Shane Steichen falls into this type of mold as a coach. He is a chameleon as a play-caller, changing his style each year to best fit his quarterback (and skill position players). As a QB coach with Philip Rivers in San Diego, Steichen worked with a quick-hitting, Ken Whisenhunt-led offense. With a star rookie in Justin Herbert in 2020, he designed a Bruce Arians-style vertical passing attack. This past season with MVP candidate Jalen Hurts, the Eagles killed teams with their duel threat passer.

Steichen has shown the ability to adapt to his offense, which is a major boost to a team like the Indianapolis Colts. On paper, this hire should work tremendously with a team set to draft a rookie top five in the next couple of months. There is just one more piece to the puzzle that is currently missing... Shane Steichen MUST nail the OL coach hire in the coming days/weeks.

We saw what happened to the Colts' offense early in the 2022 season when the offensive line play fell apart. The unit lacked cohesivity, Matt Ryan was pummeled on every snap, and the normally effective Frank Reich offense was left spiraling. Shane Steichen may be set up with a better quarterback/overall offense in 2023 with the Colts, but he could still fall victim to what plagued the last regime in 2022.

Let's also look at Steichen's Philadelphia Eagles this past season. He had a phenomenal season as a play-caller, but a lot of credit also has to go to his OL coach Jeff Stoutland. Stoutland was the team's run game coordinator and had a heavy hand in drawing up one of the league's more diverse and effective rushing attacks in 2022.

It’s incredible that the Eagles OL, which goes 9 deep, is entirely homemade. They’ve had all 9 since their rookie year and Stoutland developed all of them into what they are now, which is the most dominant unit in the NFL.

— Honest NFL (@TheHonestNFL) September 11, 2022

Stoutland is not only one of the top run game coordinators in the league, but he is also a phenomenal coach at developing talent. That was a major asset for the team this past season and Steichen shares some of the offense's credit with a coach like Stoutland. This doesn't mean that Steichen is incapable of accomplishing these things without Stoutland, just that it was a major bonus to his style.

Ben Solak of The Ringer joined Locked On Colts a few weeks back and dove into this topic in great detail with us:

I will say the big thing for Steichen, in terms of filling out his staff, is the offensive line coach. The Eagles have now had three consecutive extremely good offensive coaches in the building (Chip Kelly, Doug Pederson, and Nick Sirianni) at head coach. All of them great and all of them generating good offenses in their time there.

The one through-line is Offensive Line Coach Jeff Stoutland. He was hired by Chip Kelly out of the college ranks, never coached in the NFL before, and then they fired Chip (years later). They gutted his entire staff except for Jeff Stoutland as offensive line coach. Doug (Pederson) came in and eventually got fired. They gutted his entire staff except for one dude... Jeff Stoutland.

The Eagles' offensive line is the best unit in the league and (aside from what Kyle Shanahan does in San Fran) it is the most versatile running game in the league. If Steichen is going to Indy, the biggest question I would have for him is who he is getting for offensive line coach. We've seen how much that coaching position matters to elite offenses year in and year out. I don't care about youth vs age, who is going to make this running game work in Indy?

5:28 of Jeff Stoutland doing schematic damage on the ground. Much of it against really run defenses and really good defensive coaches. pic.twitter.com/8VqikDUSkE

— Honest NFL (@TheHonestNFL) July 21, 2022

The Colts are not going to be able to poach Jeff Stoutland from the Eagles, but they need to find the best way to emulate his impact if they want the full Shane Steichen offensive experience. So how can they do this?

Well, the obvious answer is sitting right in front of their face. Roy Istvan is the Philadelphia Eagles' Assistant Offensive Line Coach under Stoutland, and he has served in that role since 2019. He has worked under the best offensive line mind in the league for four seasons and has helped design that vaunted Eagles' rushing attack alongside Jeff Stoutland for years.

It may cost owner Jim Irsay a healthy chunk of change to grab Istvan from the Eagles, but if they can poach him, it would set up Shane Steichen for a ton of success in Indy. The other name to watch is Former Houston Texans' OL Coach George Warhop. Warhop has been an OL coach every single season since 1996 and would bring a ton of experience up front.

Regardless of who the hire is up front for the Colts, this position coach is the most important hire of the offseason (now) for the team. The Colts can't repeat the same mistakes as last season. They MUST fix this offensive line, and nailing the offensive line coach is the first step in doing that.

Need your fill on daily Colts' content? Head over to the Locked On Colts' YouTube channel where Jake Arthur and myself hit on all the major topics surrounding this team. Hit that subscribe button while you are there!

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