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INDIANAPOLIS — The way Carlie Irsay-Gordon approaches her role as the Colts’ principal owner is innovative.
For a long, long time, the conventional wisdom was that a franchise’s owner should make the big decision, then leave the coaching staff and general manager alone completely, fearful of interfering with the football side.
Irsay-Gordon believes deeply in letting her people do their jobs.
But she’s far from hands off, and Irsay-Gordon’s approach — wearing a headset on the sidelines, sitting in with the rest of the staff in team meetings, asking questions to help clarify a potential move — has sparked a debate on the owner’s role within a franchise.
“It should be the new normal,” ESPN superstar Pat McAfee told Irsay-Gordon on Tuesday.
McAfee was in the middle of interviewing Irsay-Gordon and her sister, Kalen Jackson, as part of a panel at the NFL Women’s Forum devoted to how ownership views the league.
Irsay-Gordon and Jackson, along with their sister, Casey Foyt, have now been the team’s owners for eight months, taking over last summer in the wake of the death of their father, Jim Irsay.
Their presence has sparked a conversation about how an owner should run the team, a conversation McAfee was eager to explore, considering that NFL fans at large are only now learning about an approach Colts fans have seen Irsay-Gordon take for a long time.
Unlike her father, Irsay-Gordon began her NFL career in the front office, but as she started to reckon with the possibility of taking over, she realized she needed to understand the game if she’s going to be the person in charge of hiring and firing the general manager and coach.
Irsay-Gordon’s realization led to an education in the game that began with sitting in a film room with then-scout Andrew Berry — now Cleveland’s general manager — and progressed to wearing a headset on the sidelines under Frank Reich.
Irsay-Gordon is monitoring, rather than making decisions.
“When you’re down there, you’re able to see the different dynamics,” Irsay-Gordon said.
Irsay-Gordon’s presence prompted a lot of questions from fans, and sometimes criticism from onlookers who assume she is micromanaging the coaching staff.
Her presence on the sideline has not changed.
“That’s something else our dad probably instilled in us: If you do the right thing whether it’s popular or not, you’re always going to do the right thing,” Jackson said.
The evaluations she’s making run deeper than the result of an individual play call. Irsay-Gordon cares about the play call, but she is also deeply interested in the process that leads to each call, a process that begins with the team building the roster in the offseason.
Irsay-Gordon has learned over the years that a lot of coaching issues come down to communication.
When she’s wearing the headset, she’s listening for a staff that’s always working toward the same goal, from the offseason to the practice field to the game on Sunday.
“You have to make sure all those segments are aligned,” Irsay-Gordon said. “If you don’t game-plan correctly, you wasted time practicing something you’re not going to use. … You want to make sure that there’s alignment in each one of those areas.”
Alignment and continuity are a focus for Irsay-Gordon.
For example, she told McAfee that while a lot of first-year head coaches clean house, firing all of the incumbent assistants without faithfully contemplating the possibility of keeping some of the previous staff, she sees that impulse as problematic.
An assistant coach can have plenty to offer a new staff, even if he was part of a coaching staff that failed.
“Assistant coaches, they’re very underrated, they do a lot of the work behind the scenes,” Irsay-Gordon said. “Those people are very valuable.”
Irsay-Gordon, Jackson and Foyt have already been through a lot in their first seasons as owners.
Emotionally, there is a toll that comes with taking over a mantle left open by the death of their father.
“I think about my dad every day,” Irsay-Gordon said. “You lose a parent, but then you lose your boss, and you lose your partner, in a way. For some people, where they’d be able to pour into work and kind of get out of there, it’s been an interesting process to be, wherever I go, there he is.”
From a professional standpoint, though, the three sisters had less to learn than it might seem. Because of the way they grew up in the business, working with the Colts before and after college to find their niche, the Irsays were prepared to take over for their father through years of experience.
Irsay-Gordon has been involved on the football side for a decade, dating back to those early film sessions with Berry. Jackson has been the driving force behind the team’s signature philanthropic project, Kicking the Stigma, ever since it launched — NFL commissioner Roger Goodell kicked off the NFL Women’s Forum on Tuesday by announcing a $10,000 donation to Kicking the Stigma.
“The transition was difficult emotionally, for sure, but in terms of what we were doing in the business, it was not that difficult,” Jackson said.
Because they’d already been doing the job.
A fast start to the 2025 season put a spotlight on the three sisters, particularly Irsay-Gordon’s approach to her role, propelling the three sisters into a celebrity role that’s not always seen with franchise owners. Jackson was seen celebrating with McAfee in his suite after Colts wins; Irsay-Gordon often signed autographs and snapped pictures with fans on the field before games.
But the team’s fall from an 8-2 start to an 0-7 finish and another season without a playoff berth left Irsay-Gordon, Jackson and Foyt tasked with making a difficult decision on the futures of head coach Shane Steichen and general manager Chris Ballard.
The decision may have been difficult. Irsay-Gordon has repeatedly acknowledged that Steichen and Ballard faced increased pressure to produce in 2026.
But they were also prepared for the blowback that came with retaining both men at a time when the fan base would like to see change, particularly in the general manager’s chair.
“He always made us understand the responsibility, the heaviness of this role,” Jackson said. “There are going to be plenty of times where you make a decision and no one agrees with you. You’re going to have to have the confidence to move through that.”
The same way Irsay-Gordon has the confidence to wear a headset on the sideline even though the rest of the league’s owners are perched high in a suite.
Joel A. Erickson and Nathan Brown cover the Colts all season. Get more coverage on IndyStarTV and with the Colts Insider newsletter.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Carlie Irsay-Gordon, Pat McAfee explore Colts owner's innovative approach
Continue reading...
For a long, long time, the conventional wisdom was that a franchise’s owner should make the big decision, then leave the coaching staff and general manager alone completely, fearful of interfering with the football side.
Irsay-Gordon believes deeply in letting her people do their jobs.
But she’s far from hands off, and Irsay-Gordon’s approach — wearing a headset on the sidelines, sitting in with the rest of the staff in team meetings, asking questions to help clarify a potential move — has sparked a debate on the owner’s role within a franchise.
“It should be the new normal,” ESPN superstar Pat McAfee told Irsay-Gordon on Tuesday.
McAfee was in the middle of interviewing Irsay-Gordon and her sister, Kalen Jackson, as part of a panel at the NFL Women’s Forum devoted to how ownership views the league.
Irsay-Gordon and Jackson, along with their sister, Casey Foyt, have now been the team’s owners for eight months, taking over last summer in the wake of the death of their father, Jim Irsay.
Their presence has sparked a conversation about how an owner should run the team, a conversation McAfee was eager to explore, considering that NFL fans at large are only now learning about an approach Colts fans have seen Irsay-Gordon take for a long time.
Unlike her father, Irsay-Gordon began her NFL career in the front office, but as she started to reckon with the possibility of taking over, she realized she needed to understand the game if she’s going to be the person in charge of hiring and firing the general manager and coach.
Irsay-Gordon’s realization led to an education in the game that began with sitting in a film room with then-scout Andrew Berry — now Cleveland’s general manager — and progressed to wearing a headset on the sidelines under Frank Reich.
Irsay-Gordon is monitoring, rather than making decisions.
“When you’re down there, you’re able to see the different dynamics,” Irsay-Gordon said.
Irsay-Gordon’s presence prompted a lot of questions from fans, and sometimes criticism from onlookers who assume she is micromanaging the coaching staff.
Her presence on the sideline has not changed.
“That’s something else our dad probably instilled in us: If you do the right thing whether it’s popular or not, you’re always going to do the right thing,” Jackson said.
The evaluations she’s making run deeper than the result of an individual play call. Irsay-Gordon cares about the play call, but she is also deeply interested in the process that leads to each call, a process that begins with the team building the roster in the offseason.
Irsay-Gordon has learned over the years that a lot of coaching issues come down to communication.
When she’s wearing the headset, she’s listening for a staff that’s always working toward the same goal, from the offseason to the practice field to the game on Sunday.
“You have to make sure all those segments are aligned,” Irsay-Gordon said. “If you don’t game-plan correctly, you wasted time practicing something you’re not going to use. … You want to make sure that there’s alignment in each one of those areas.”
Alignment and continuity are a focus for Irsay-Gordon.
For example, she told McAfee that while a lot of first-year head coaches clean house, firing all of the incumbent assistants without faithfully contemplating the possibility of keeping some of the previous staff, she sees that impulse as problematic.
An assistant coach can have plenty to offer a new staff, even if he was part of a coaching staff that failed.
“Assistant coaches, they’re very underrated, they do a lot of the work behind the scenes,” Irsay-Gordon said. “Those people are very valuable.”
Irsay-Gordon, Jackson and Foyt have already been through a lot in their first seasons as owners.
Emotionally, there is a toll that comes with taking over a mantle left open by the death of their father.
“I think about my dad every day,” Irsay-Gordon said. “You lose a parent, but then you lose your boss, and you lose your partner, in a way. For some people, where they’d be able to pour into work and kind of get out of there, it’s been an interesting process to be, wherever I go, there he is.”
From a professional standpoint, though, the three sisters had less to learn than it might seem. Because of the way they grew up in the business, working with the Colts before and after college to find their niche, the Irsays were prepared to take over for their father through years of experience.
Irsay-Gordon has been involved on the football side for a decade, dating back to those early film sessions with Berry. Jackson has been the driving force behind the team’s signature philanthropic project, Kicking the Stigma, ever since it launched — NFL commissioner Roger Goodell kicked off the NFL Women’s Forum on Tuesday by announcing a $10,000 donation to Kicking the Stigma.
“The transition was difficult emotionally, for sure, but in terms of what we were doing in the business, it was not that difficult,” Jackson said.
Because they’d already been doing the job.
A fast start to the 2025 season put a spotlight on the three sisters, particularly Irsay-Gordon’s approach to her role, propelling the three sisters into a celebrity role that’s not always seen with franchise owners. Jackson was seen celebrating with McAfee in his suite after Colts wins; Irsay-Gordon often signed autographs and snapped pictures with fans on the field before games.
But the team’s fall from an 8-2 start to an 0-7 finish and another season without a playoff berth left Irsay-Gordon, Jackson and Foyt tasked with making a difficult decision on the futures of head coach Shane Steichen and general manager Chris Ballard.
The decision may have been difficult. Irsay-Gordon has repeatedly acknowledged that Steichen and Ballard faced increased pressure to produce in 2026.
But they were also prepared for the blowback that came with retaining both men at a time when the fan base would like to see change, particularly in the general manager’s chair.
“He always made us understand the responsibility, the heaviness of this role,” Jackson said. “There are going to be plenty of times where you make a decision and no one agrees with you. You’re going to have to have the confidence to move through that.”
The same way Irsay-Gordon has the confidence to wear a headset on the sideline even though the rest of the league’s owners are perched high in a suite.
Joel A. Erickson and Nathan Brown cover the Colts all season. Get more coverage on IndyStarTV and with the Colts Insider newsletter.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Carlie Irsay-Gordon, Pat McAfee explore Colts owner's innovative approach
Continue reading...
