Football Nerds Leading Colts Offense To Historic Start
INDIANAPOLIS – Football nerds, they are.
And, please, treat that phrase as a massive compliment.
If you want to speak more in “football language” Shane Steichen and Daniel Jones are opening up a can on NFL teams in 2025.
One of Steichen’s core beliefs he shared at his introductory press conference in 2023 was the word preparation.
Steichen and Joens must have that branded on their bodies somewhere.
The Monday-Saturday grind from the two is heavily embraced.
For Steichen, the belief in preparation stems back to his first season in the NFL—as a 2011 defensive quality control for the Chargers.
“I just saw certain guys, saw certain coaches, players, the guys that had been around the league for a long time, I saw the preparation that they put in, and it wasn’t a surprise for those guys the success they had, how long they played and how long some of these coaches had been coaching, their preparation was off the chart,” Steichen explains.
Virtually anytime somone is asked to describe Steichen or Jones, you hear a word rooted around work ethic when it comes to the game of football.
That’s why it should be no surprise the two have gravitated so well towards each other in their first year of rookie contract.
Steichen’s obsessive nature when it comes to preparation has been met by a quarterback who is known to be a little late to Thursday night quarterback/wide receiver dinners, for good reason.
“I think the preparation builds confidence,” Steichen says. “It’s just the preparation that (Jones) puts in day in and day out.
“Daniel’s as good as it gets when it comes to the preparation. You know he’s going to be prepared, and I just have no doubt he’s going to play well every time we step on the field. I think our guys know that and he gets us going, our offensive line sets the tone, but his preparation is just off the charts.
“You’ve got a guy that’s the signal-caller back there that studies his tail off, looks at tape all day every day, grinding, looking at different things, knowing the checks, understanding what we’re trying to get done offensively, getting us in and out of the right plays.”
Even out in pubic, the head coach/quarterback relationship between Steichen and Jones was seen last Friday.
In NFL life, Friday night is usually the one universal “get away” time for players and coaches. But there was Steichen and Jones sitting next to each other at the Butler basketball exhibition game.
Think the new discussed anything related to the Colts/Chargers game waiting two days later, a game in which the duo helped nearly double the amount of points their opponent had been allowed (38 points scored, Chargers had been averaging 20 points per game)?
Saturday morning for the Colts is typically reserved for a film session between head coach/player caller and starting quarterback. The goal is to watch a couple of opponent game films with the head coach letting the quarterback know what his play-calling mind would be thinking during such situations.
As the day before prep continues later Saturday (plane ride for a road game; trip to the team hotel for a home game), Jones has been willing to hold a player meeting late the night before a game to continue any last-minute prep.
Colts second-year center Tanor Bortolini sits behind Steichen and Jones on team flights and he observes the two football lovers.
“Just the whole way there, Daniel is looking at his notes and Shane is giving him little pointers on things he’s going over with his game plan,” the center explains. “Just seeing how much thought goes into it and how much preparation those guys do to allow this offense to do the things we’ve been doing, it’s really huge and motivates us to do our job to the best of our ability.
“I think what they do is such a good job making sure throughout the week they are on the same page of what they want to be looking for on certain calls within the game—what calls are we getting to on what looks. I think Daniel is really wired into that and I think Shane does a great job of getting him to that point. Come game time, every play, I think Daniel knows what his reads are, who he wants to go to, what we are trying to expose on that play, and really just a mastery of the offense. It’s really a 1-2 punch with those guys.”
What has all of this produced for the Colts in 2025?
-1st in yards per play (6.35 YPP)
-1st in points per game (33.2 PPG)
-Top-10 in third down efficiency (46.8%) and red zone (67.7%)
-1st in sacks attempt allowed per pass attempt (2.76%)
-1 of 2 teams to have scored 20 points or more in every game
Frankly, the Colts are off to one of the best offensive starts this league has seen in quite some time.
One of the very few early-season offensive nitpicks has done a total 180 in the positive direction.
After hitting on less than 50 percent of their red-zone trips in the first 3 games, the Colts are 16 of their last 18 in converting trips inside the 20-yard line into touchdowns, including a one of 12 straight that only ended because they ran out of time at the end of Sunday’s first half, thus settling for a field goal.
Prior to the start of the ’25 campaign, Jones sat down with Colts.com and shared some thoughts on his offensive minded head coach.
“He’s very creative in how he thinks of getting certain players the ball in certain situations, and how he sees our offense and different things he can get to pretty quickly,” the 7th year pro says.
“I think he’s extremely practical and realistic in terms of, it’s not always got to be some crazy, super exotic idea. A lot of it’s pretty straightforward, practical things that come from a lot of similar looks, you can do a lot of different things from them and that keeps defenses guessing. There’s a lot of genius in that simplicity, right. Guys who can take more complex things and make them simple, make them in a football sense come from a straightforward idea but make it tough for a defense to defend.
“That’s what I think a lot of the best coaches do, and he does that well.”
It’s chess from the 2025 Colts, with Steichen and Jones moving those pieces, with their opponents left thinking it’s checkers.
