Colts owner Carlie Irsay-Gordon has had an active, visible presence on the team’s sidelines for a while. It predates her tenure as the controlling owner of the franchise.
She has explained her approach in the past. It wasn’t an issue when the Colts were 7-0 in 2025.
This year, with a pair of standalone games in the first four weeks and multiple images of Irsay-Gordon working alongside the coaches and the staff, it has become a thing again — mainly because she has been criticized for it.
Irsay-Gordon addressed the situation in comments to Bridget Condon of Front Office Sports Tonight.
“I like to say on a good day I have like a fifth-grade reading level understanding of the game and just the basic concepts of what we’re trying to do, depending on the week and depending on our opponent and depending on the situation,” Irsay-Gordon said.
“But I think, then, it just helps to understand and to ask questions because I think one of the things, in my opinion, like being a good leader is about listening, really to understand. And I think that’s what the best teams do.”
In June 2025, she talked about her approach during games.
“I need to be able to say, ‘Is this person full of BS? Do they even know what they’re talking about?’” Irsay-Gordon said at the time. “It is such a complex organism, a football team and how it operates. . . . You could say, ‘Oh, that person ran that route wrong.’ Then you learn, ‘Oh, someone tagged the wrong WR and it wasn’t really the player’s fault, it was the person that called it.
“I would suggest it for anyone else that has to pay coaches and GMs millions and millions of dollars. It helps you make a less expensive mistake, potentially.”
I’ve personally got no problem with it. Other owners should do it. Inevitably, they’ll be making big decisions about the future of the franchise. They can either make them based on information obtained from others, or they can be actively involved in gathering the requisite information in real time.
That said, there are potential issues. The coach can feel undermined. His decisions could be hampered by having the ultimate boss lurking. As one coach put it, there are ways to do what she’s doing that aren’t so obvious — to the viewers or to the coaches. In a word, Irsay-Gordon’s current approach can be “messy.”
As another coach put it, there’s a potential performative element to the exercise, whether it’s intended or not. She now knows that the cameras will find her, and the notepad and the pen have already become fodder for all sorts of memes.
One important question that should be asked at some point is whether she’s doing what some other owners do — wasting the coach’s valuable time the day after a game with a long meeting to rehash everything that happened.
Still, she’s the owner. Many things fall within the prerogative of the owners. Jerry Jones made himself the General Manager of the Cowboys when he bought the team in 1989, despite having no obvious skills or experience to perform such an important and specialized job. And while that happened in the days before the Internet and social media, there was no loud objection to Jerry giving himself a job for which he wasn’t fit.
Likewise, plenty of owners end up on the sidelines of a game. It’s their call. It’s one of the privileges of holding the controlling stake in the team.
And that’s really the bottom line. She can do whatever she wants to do. The coach is being scrutinized by tens of thousands in the stadium and millions watching on TV. Whether the owner is monitoring from the luxury suite or peering over the coach’s shoulder, it’s part and parcel of being an NFL head coach.
While it’s important to delegate the biggest jobs in the football operation to qualified people and to get out of their way, Carlie Irsay-Gordon is acquiring data that will help her make important decisions. Over time, her “fifth-grade reading level” understanding will become more advanced, to the point of getting an NFL GED. Which would be much more than what Jones had when he made himself the GM of the Dallas Cowboys.
The Colts won’t have defensive end Arden Key in the lineup for a while.
Key injured his hamstring in Sunday’s 30-13 win over the Commanders in London and head coach Shane Steichen said at a Monday press conference that Key is going to miss more time moving forward. Jeremy Fowler of ESPN reports that Key is expected to miss three or four weeks.
That timeline could make Key a candidate for injured reserve, which would mean he’d miss at least four games. The Colts play the Steelers, Titans, Vikings and Jaguars in the next four weeks.
Key has eight tackles, a half-sack and a forced fumble so far this season.
The Commanders’ loss in London to the Colts had nothing to do with a lack of fan support.
Via Nathan Brown of the Indianapolis Star, the neutral-site game for which the Commanders were the designated home team was dominated by Commanders fans.
“I think out of all the teams I’ve played overseas, [the Commanders] is the fanbase that traveled the best that I’ve seen,” Colts safety Camryn Bynum said. “Maybe that’s because they’re on the east coast, and so it’s a closer flight?
“But it is still six hours for them, so I don’t know. They did travel really well.”
Usually, international games feature an eclectic mix of NFL jerseys and colors. As explained by Brown, the crowd in excess of 60,000 consisted largely of maroon.
It didn’t make a difference for the Commanders, who lost the game 30-13. But that may have had something to do with the loss of backup quarterback Marcus Mariota to a knee injury, which pressed seventh-round rookie Athan Kaliakmanis into extended duty.
Commanders quarterback Marcus Mariota is believed to have an MCL sprain. That increases the urgency to get starter Jayden Daniels back from a dislocated elbow.
The Commanders are hopeful, we’re told, that Daniels will be able to play next weekend against the Giants.
One key factor will be Daniels’s ability to fully participate in practice. He got some team reps this week, when he was limited in practice on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.
If neither Daniels nor Mariota can go, seventh-round rookie Athan Kaliakmanis will get his first career start. It was a little rough at first, but a 47-yard touchdown pass to receiver Treylon Burks cut the score to 17-13 in the third quarter.
It was all Colts after that, dropping the Commanders to 1-3. Sunday’s game against the 3-1 Giants becomes critical to any effort by the Commanders to turn things around.
The Commanders were down to their third-string quarterback today in London, and although rookie Athan Kaliakmanis showed some arm strength, it was the Colts’ running game that controlled the game.
Jonathan Taylor ran for two touchdowns, Daniel Jones ran for another, and the Colts beat the Commanders 30-13.
With first-string quarterback Jayden Daniels out because of an elbow injury, backup Marcus Mariota started for the Commanders. But Mariota had to leave in the first quarter with a knee injury, and that left it to Kaliakmanis to run the show the rest of the way.
Kaliakmanis did make some big plays, with completions of 48 and 47 yards as well as an 87-yard touchdown called back by a penalty, but he couldn’t do enough and the Colts controlled the game throughout.
Mariota wasn’t the only Commanders player lost to injury. Commanders wide receiver Jaylin Lane had to be carted off the field after suffering an ankle injury on a kickoff return and was quickly ruled out for the rest of the game.
The Colts improve to 2-2 with the win, but questions remain about Jones, who was not impressive throwing the ball. Jones went 19-for-34 for 143 yards, with no touchdown passes, an interception and a lost fumble.
The Commanders fall to 1-3, and they’re in a tough place, with no word yet on who their starting quarterback will be when they face the Giants next week. If Daniels can’t return to the field and return to the level of play he showed as a rookie two years ago, the Commanders’ season could spiral in a hurry.
