Shane Steichen's 2 priorities for Indianapolis Colts in 2026 season
· Yahoo Sports
As Indianapolis Colts' head coach Shane Steichen looks ahead to the 2026 NFL season, there seem to be two particular items at the top of his to-do list.
He wants to make sure that the 2026 Colts are physical and can finish games.
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"I want to be physical, first and foremost," Steichen said at the NFL combine. "Physical and find ways to finish games. I think you gotta find ways to win games regardless of circumstances and sometimes they gotta be ugly."
The Colts finished the 2025 season on a seven-game losing streak. Injuries won't be an excuse, but we can't pretend that they didn't factor into the outcome of last year, either.
But with that said, the Colts' inability to close out games, especially down the stretch, extends beyond just 2025. This has been a recurring issue during the team's five-year playoff drought.
Whether it's not making key plays late or too many miscues to overcome, the Colts have been unable to win those must-have games late in the season.
Owner Carlie Irsay-Gordon had a similar message during her end-of-season press conference, saying that, "We just have to be able to face adversity better."
So how do the Colts accomplish that?
"Down the stretch, obviously with some unfortunate circumstances, we gotta find ways to win ugly games." Steichen added. "And I think whether that's through practice, how we practice late in the season, putting those guys in situations. In training camp, obviously, we do the sudden change situations, you do two-minute drills, you do those throughout the season, but it's maintaining that down the stretch too. Putting those guys in more of those situations will be a big part of it moving forward."
The Colts are running it back with Chris Ballard and Steichen because of the belief internally that the success that the team had through the first half of the 2025 season can be replicated. However, if replicating that success is step No. 1, then step No. 2 is maintaining that level of play.
"It's really just the consistency throughout the year," Steichen said of the 2026 season. "It's finding ways to win the game regardless."
This article originally appeared on Colts Wire: NFL combine: Shane Steichen on what Colts must accomplish in 2026