Now that the Dolphins have fired coach Joe Philbin, the football-following world is trying to figure out who may be next. And much of the chatter has centered on the men who will coach Thursday night’s game between the Colts and Texans.
Appearing earlier this week on PFT Live on NBC Sports Radio, John McClain of the Houston Chronicle said there’s no way Texans coach Bill O’Brien is even close to being on the hot seat, despite a 1-3 start punctuated by an embarrassing loss at Atlanta. Also appearing on PFT Live, Bob Kravitz of WTHR in Indianpolis said that the same can’t be said for Colts coach Chuck Pagano.
Kravitz said he feared Pagano may have been fired by the oft-impulsive Jim Irsay if Indy had lost its Week Three game at Tennessee. Looking at the schedule over the next five weeks, consecutive wins over the Titans and Jaguars give Pagano no reason to exhale.
After traveling to Houston (where the Colts erased a huge deficit last year to win on a Thursday night), the Colts host the Patriots and the Saints before heading to Carolina for a Monday night game. Then, Peyton Manning returns to Indianapolis, perhaps for the final time.
Win one or none of the next five and lose in ugly fashion to Peyton’s Broncos, with the bye week coming immediate afterward, it could be the end of the road for Pagano.
So how much of the noise regarding the coach’s job security is being heard by the players?
“Very little I’d say,” tight end Coby Fleener told PFT Live on Monday. “I think at least from my perspective I do the best I can to not read any of the news. And so regardless of whether we’re playing well or playing poorly it ultimately leads to an emotional roller coaster.”
Over the next month, that roller coaster could be going mainly downhill.