Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Jim Irsay: I reluctantly gave Frank Reich a contract extension before I wanted to

jRqPmrVIoQ5L
Mike Florio and Chris Simms explore what went wrong for the Colts in Week 16, from Nick Foles' struggles to the defense getting beat down, as well as the chances of Jeff Saturday being head coach in 2023.

Colts owner Jim Irsay cost himself a lot of money by giving head coach Frank Reich a contract extension before the 2021 season, only to fire him in the middle of the 2022 season. Irsay now regrets it.

In an interview with ESPN, Irsay said the contract he gave Reich wasn’t something he was eager to do.

“I reluctantly gave Frank an extension sooner than I wanted to,” Irsay said.

But Irsay didn’t elaborate on that claim, and it’s a strange one: Irsay owns the team. He calls the shots, makes the final decisions, and decides who gets a contract and who doesn’t. It’s unclear why he would extend Reich if he didn’t want to extend him. If Irsay didn’t think Reich was the right person to coach his team for years to come, no one was making Irsay extend him.

But Irsay did extend him, through the 2026 season, and ESPN reported that Irsay now owes Reich $36 million over the length of that contract.