PHOENIX — The most important coaching hire Shane Steichen made after taking over the Colts wasn’t one of the two coordinators he had to replace.
Indianapolis needed the right offensive line coach.
A coach who can get one of the NFL’s highest-paid offensive lines playing up to its price tag again, who can help Quenton Nelson and Braden Smith play up to their reputation, who can develop gifted but raw Bernhard Raimann into a bona fide starting left tackle in the NFL.
Tony Sparano Jr. fit the bill.
Not because of his famous name, the one he shares with his father, a legendary offensive line coach who rose all the way to head coach of the Miami Dolphins.
Because Sparano Jr. earned the job.
“The way he saw the game, the accountability he’s going to have with those guys,” Steichen said. “Very, very bright, intelligent. Some of the things he talked about. … Midway through the interview, I was like: ‘Yeah, this is going to be the guy.’ He was phenomenal.”
The importance of the position wasn’t lost on Steichen, who spent the last two years working with renowned Philadelphia offensive line coach Jeff Stoutland, an assistant so good he’s now worked for three Eagles head coaches.
And even if Steichen hadn’t coached with Stoutland, all he had to do was turn on the tape of the once-proud Indianapolis offensive line last season. Crippled by the gambles general manager Chris Ballard took at left tackle and right guard, the collapse of the Colts offensive line served as the kindling for the fire that consumed the franchise last fall.
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Nelson, Smith and three-time Pro Bowl center Ryan Kelly gave up a combined 15 sacks, according to Sports Info Solutions, and as a result, the Colts gave up a whopping 60 sacks overall, the worst mark in the league and nearly doubling the most sacks they allowed (32) in any of the previous four seasons under former coach Frank Reich.
Making matters worse, the Colts no longer blew open holes in the running game, forcing superstar running back Jonathan Taylor to create his own holes at the line of scrimmage, rather than slicing into the open for the breakaway runs that defined the 2021 season.
“At the start of last year, offensively, no one could have seen it coming that we’d have gone down to Houston and play that way, not pick up zone blitzes in the middle of the field,” Indianapolis owner Jim Irsay said. “Somehow, someway, we have to push the reset button and be fundamentally sound in everything we’re doing.”
When Steichen looked at the tape of the Indianapolis offensive line, he liked what he saw from a talent perspective.
“There’s some pieces there,” Steichen said.
He needed a coach who could get them to play their best.
But he also needed a coach who understands the X’s and O’s of the game. An offensive line coach has to be a technician, an expert in the details, but an offensive line coach also has to be an innovator, able to game plan an opposing team’s defensive front and react to the wrinkles defensive coordinators roll out on a weekly basis.
With that in mind, Steichen cast a wide net.
“You’ve got to do your research,” Steichen said. “You ask around, certain coaches, certain people. Who’s out there?”The net Steichen cast didn’t necessarily include a lot of the older, bigger names on the market. Steichen, the youngest coach in the history of the Indianapolis-era Colts by a wide margin, wanted to build an offensive staff full of young coaches on the cutting edge.
“I kind of wanted to go that route offensively,” Steichen said. “The young, energy, youth, hungry, I kind of wanted to build that kind of culture offensively from a coaching staff perspective, just be able to bring that energy, that relatability. Times are changing.”
Steichen identified five to six candidates for the offensive line job.
Then he put them through a ringer of an interview, six to seven hours in all, grilling them on their style and the X’s and O’s of the position.
Sparano, Jr. got Steichen’s attention.
Only 36, Sparano, Jr. has been working his way up the ranks of NFL assistant for more than a decade, and although his only position coach experience prior to this job was as Buffalo’s tight ends coach in 2015 and 2016, he’s spent the last six years as an assistant offensive line coach in a variety of different systems.
Sparano, Jr. faces a lot of pressure in his first lead assistant role.
Indianapolis hasn’t added any new pieces to the offensive line in free agency so far, making it likely the Colts will have to get improvement from the guys they already have in the building — Ballard keeps saying that the team’s best players have to play better — and young guys like Will Fries, Bernhard Raimann and any offensive linemen the Colts add in the draft.
Raimann, in particular, is a key piece.
A third-round pick last season, Raimann gave up nine sacks as a rookie, struggling in the fourth quarter at crucial moments of games.
But the rookie only played tackle at Central Michigan for two seasons before entering the NFL, and the Colts knew it might take some time for him to reach his potential. Indianapolis believes Raimann showed enough down the stretch to think he might be the team’s left tackle of the future, filling a hole that has plagued the Colts since Anthony Castonzo’s retirement two seasons ago.
“He’s a young player that’s progressing,” Steichen said. “I think we’ve got to keep developing him, and I think Tony’s going to do a heck of a job with those guys, going to get those guys better every single day.”
The Colts desperately need Sparano, Jr., to get the offensive line playing well.
They know what it looks like when it’s not.