Luck backs Colts coach Pagano, wants long-term stay

After months of speculation about coach Chuck Pagano’s future, team owner Jim Irsay will decide whether to bring his coach back.

Luck and his team-mates met with Pagano as they cleared out their lockers on Monday and the three-time Pro Bowl QB, who was the number one pick in the 2012 NFL Draft, conceded changes might be on the cards, despite his public backing of the Colts coach.

However, the Colts had 11-win seasons in each of Pagano’s first three seasons (he missed a large part of one season while he battled cancer) and played in an AFC championship game last season.

Colts players have a lot of respect for Pagano (many tweeted their excitement over the news that Pagano would stay), who built a good reputation as a defensive assistant with the Baltimore Ravens before Indianapolis hired him. The Colts took a chance and the hire paid off. In his first season, Pagano lost in the AFC Wild Card Game, then lost the AFC Divisional Game in 2013 and finally the AFC Championship Game was lost in 2014.

The move may signal the end of a 20-year National Football League head coaching career for Coughlin, one of 13 coaches to win multiple Super Bowls.

This team remains the NFL’s poster child of almost constant change, unable to stick with a plan long enough to see if it will work.

“It was something I was hopeful would be the case”, Irsay said.

What we do know though is that both Pagano and Grigson will be in Indy next year and both men are excited about it. “I don’t know what the future holds”.

Pagano had been in the final year of his original contract while Grigson was under contract through 2016. “I feel like I’ve grown so much as a player, as a person under him”. “We’ve been candid. We agreed to disagree but at the end of the day, leave every meeting with a handshake and a hug and you say, ‘Okay, look, it’s about one thing and one thing only”.

The Giants announced the decision one day after the Giants (6-10) capped their third straight losing season with a 35-30 defeat against Philadelphia, their third in a row and sixth in seven games. Stephen Holder, over at the IndyStar, said that the meeting had gone into overtime (more than two hours at the time of his publish) and there wouldn’t be any announcements.

Grigson: “Chuck Pagano is a great man. I don’t have to sit here and tell you guys that”. Injuries and questionable personnel decisions led to this season’s 8-8 mark, and though Pagano could hardly be blamed for that, it would not have been surprising if Irsay had chose to go in a different direction. Four years ago, we started coming to this building with the same vision, the same mindset, and we’ll continue to do that day and day out. But the delay renewed hope among Pagano’s biggest supporters that he could come back.

“We’re moving forward”, Irsay said.

The Colts put on a riveting show Monday night, with more last-second drama than any of their games in 2015. Through this season, which became trying and disappointing, he’s always been sort of a bastion of whatever that is of a good coach.