Shane Steichen Drops Surprising Revelations at Combine Press Conference—What It Means for the Season Ahead

When healthy why did it click with Daniel Jones and what he means to the franchise if he returns to the Colts?

”The way he works and the way he goes about his business and his preparation is phenomenal. What he was able to do before the injury was awesome for us. Obviously a very talented player, he sees the game well and can get us in the right plays which was huge. We are talking to him right now and hopefully some deal will come here soon.“

What identity do you want to have going forward?

”I want to be physical first and foremost. And find ways to finish games. We will go through that stuff through self scouting. I think you build your identity in the offseason going into training camp is huge. We got to find ways to win games regardless of circumstances.

Sometimes they got to be ugly. Sometimes they got to be 10 to 13. Whatever it looks like going into those games we need to find ways to win that. But like I said i want to be physical.

On what he saw from Jalen Travis’ rookie year and if he would be confident in him sliding into the starting role if Braden doesn’t return.

“There’s huge upside with Jalen, he did some good things for us. Big human. I think Tony (Sparano Jr.) does a great job with the guys up front getting them prepared each and every week. Very smart player who picked it up pretty fast so I’m excited to see what the future holds for him.”

On what he liked about the 2025 season’s start.

”Yeah I think that’s what gives me optimism about the future is that there is so much good to takeaway of the start of the year and starting 8-2. We were clicking on all cylinders and I think everyone was rolling. The way we were throwing the ball, the way we were running it, the way we were playing Defense.

I think when you look back the biggest thing too is it’s always the key to victory: Win the turnover battle. We gotta do a better job of that. Taking care of the football next year is going to be huge for us. I think we did a good job of taking balls away, but if we can do that even more so this year that will be huge for our success.

On if he is comfortable running the same Offense if Daniel Jones comes back off of an Achilles with a decrease in mobility.

”Yeah I think we feel confident in that. I feel confident he will be ready by training camp.“

What did you observe in the 2nd half of the season that was not up to snuff?

”That’s a great question. Diving into our self scout stuff right now I think at the end of the day it’s about starting with us as coaches looking at our scheme trending out those runs. You can get 2, 3 yards but when your yards per carry go up when you create those explosive runs and we got to get back to that. Creating those holes like we did earlier in this season for JT so that will be the big part of our study this offseason to maintain that.“

On a follow up of what areas standout about the Offense from the second half of the season that they need to improve on and what he can do personally to improve, Steichen commented:

”I think it’s really just the consistency throughout the year. If we can do what we did to start the season throughout the 17 game stretch it could obviously be a special season. We know it’s each week in this league you know you are not going to go for 450 yards and score 35 points. It’s finding ways to win the games regardless of what it looks like on a day to day basis out there and adjusting on the fly. The consistency which we played with at the beginning of the season to finish out the right way.