Embattled Indianapolis Colts head coach Chuck Pagano seemingly sees the writing on the wall. At 3-12 on the season, Indianapolis will finish up its disastrous 2017 campaign against the Houston Texans Sunday afternoon.
And it looks like Pagano is preparing for this to be his final game as the Colts’ head coach.
Chuck Pagano told his team that Sunday's game is "our last rodeo together."
I don't think he means just for the 2017 season.
— Zak Keefer (@zkeefer) December 27, 2017
We can read into this a few different ways. But it’s pretty obvious what Pagano meant here. The Colts’ head coach since 2012, Pagano has posted a 52-43. But it’s the team’s struggles without the injured Andrew Luck that is likely to cut short his tenure in Indy.
It’s also been somewhat of a long time coming here. Multiple insiders around the NFL viewed Pagano as a candidate to be fired after the Colts finished each of the past two seasons at .500. But owner Jim Irsay has remained loyal, probably to a fault here.
Winning three games in a season will place that loyalty into question. And it appears that this is exactly what’s happened. Look for Pagano to be fired on Black Monday following the team’s Week 17 outing against Houston.