There's a lot of talk around the Colts after longtime coach Tony Dungy just retired. But now that the retirement tributes are coming to a close, the focus begins to turn to the man filling in Dungy's shoes. Jim Caldwell.
For some background info, Caldwell has been the assistant head coach in Indy since 2005, as well as being the quarterbacks coach since 2002. Now of course, the Colts have had tremendous offensive success in this decade, but we really don't have any idea how much Caldwell truly contributed, when you have Tom Moore (heck, and Peyton Manning) as your offensive coordinator. Plus, his one head coaching tenure wasn't great, as he had a 26-63 record with Wake Forest. But this promotion for him really just means one thing...
The Colts are going about business as usual.
Caldwell has been an apprentice of Dungy's for a few years now, and shares much of his football philosophy with Dungy. Bringing in Caldwell is essentially just keeping stability within Indy. Bringing in a new head coach often causes a lot of changes in personnel and philosophy. But with the regular season success the Colts have had, there is no reason to have a wide-scale change.
This is why this is a good move, at least for the short term. The Colts still have Bill Polian as GM, still have Tom Moore as the offensive coordinator, and will likely still have Ron Meeks as the defensive coordinator. It's a great move now because things aren't changing in Indy. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," and when you win 10+ games every year for 7 years, you certainly aren't "broke," even with the Colts playoff failings.
The Colts really have no need to be worried under Caldwell. He's surrounded by enough quality guys that it is going to be hard to really fail. The unfortunate thing for him is, he'll likely have his success compared to Dungy. And it's near impossible to do much better than Dungy did with the Colts.
We'll see how Caldwell does in Indy. Even though it is a coaching change, have no doubt, this isn't anywhere close to a regime change.





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