New head coach Chuck Pagano assumes charge at Indianapolis Colts with many challenges ahead – NFL News
Indianapolis Colts’ new head coach, Chuck Pagano, has assumed his duties at the team following to his formal introduction to media by his employer, Colts’ owner, Jim Irsay, on Thursday, January 26, 2012.
Colts had confirmed the appointment of Pagano as a head of their coaching department a day earlier. The team owner along with his new general manager, Ryan Grigson, unveiled the coach at a news conference at the team’s headquarters on past Thursday.
Irsay, while responding to mediamen queries, defended his choice of signing the new coach off defensive department of the Baltimore Ravens, and said that he believed Pagano would bring about toughness in the team at the time of the need.
Pagano, who is taking over Colts’ former coach, Jim Caldwell, backed his employer’s aim of turning around the franchise to give a better performance on the field during next National Football League (NFL) season.
The coach, who will be performing the head coaching’s role for the first time in his professional career, said that he would be upto the challenge and will introduce steps to meet it.
He said that he was coming out of one of the worst times of his career, as he was disappointed to have achieved so much, while being at Ravens, as to playing the American Football Conference (AFC) championship and then end up as losers.
"Words can't describe the emotions that I'm going through right now and the feelings," he said. "Coming off probably the most devastating loss that I've ever been a part of in the AFC championship game and to go in that locker room and see those faces and
we all know how hard it is to get to that stage and to see the tears. It's an all-time low, and the last thing I ever expected came across my table and now I sit here at an all-time high."
Pagano had spent only a year as a defensive co-ordinator at the Baltimore Ravens. He could manage the 3-4 record at the team, before accepting the head coaching job at Colts.
The new coach will be working with Colts first-time general manager, Ryan Grigson, who has replaced their former GM, Chris Polian. Chris was fired along with his father, Bill Polian, the vice chairman, by Irsay to start with his rash overhauling of his franchise.
The foremost challenge in front of the new coaching official is the handling of the issue pertaining to quarterback, Peyton Manning’s contract with the team.
He has to work with the new GM to decide, in line with the wishes of their employer, whether to retain Manning by paying him $28 million bonus by March 08, 2012, or cut him loose from the contractual binding and be a free agent.
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