ChuckSTRONG!! BruceSTRONGER??

Jim Irsay may have tough decisions to make in the coming years

This past Sunday, the Indianapolis Colts completed one of the greatest comebacks of this season, when Andrew Luck threw a 14-yard touchdown pass to Donnie Avery. This win made the colts 7-2 under the guidance of interim head coach Bruce Arians. Most pundits attribute the majority of this astounding success to the inspiration of ailing head coach Chuck Pagano, but this focus gives Arian's accomplishments short shrift.

Bruce Arians has never been an NFL head coach and got his first opportunity under enormously trying circumstances. The team he inherited was 1-2, leaderless, and very young. This situation could easily have fallen apart, but Bruce Arians held it all together. He has shown all of the qualities of a great coach. He motivated his team by rallying them around the cause of "ChuckSTRONG". He has constantly improved his team's quality of play during his tenure. As the offensive coordinator, he has masterfully encouraged the rapid progression of Andrew Luck. His game plans have been effective, his game management has been serviceable, and most importantly, he has won a lot.

This combination of motivator, teacher, and strategist is found in few coaches around the league. If teams are astute, they will be clamoring to hire Arians this offseason. If Arians wants to be a head coach, he should certainly be able to find someone who will be willing to remove that interim tag from his title, even if it is not in Indianapolis.

But… should it be in Indianapolis?

My stomach lurched forward a little bit as I wrote that question. It seems like a morally repugnant idea to take away the job of a cancer survivor, especially one who clearly has a great connection with his team and did a lot of the offseason preparation for this fantastic season, but what if Bruce Arians truly was the better coach? We recently saw Alex Smith lose his job, because of injury, but dealing with a life threatening illness definitely feels like a whole new area on the spectrum of morality.

While our moral intuitions tell us that it would be wrong for the Colts to fire Pagano after this season, it does make me wonder what moral obligations do the Colts owe to Pagano? If the Colts flamed out this season and then fell apart next season, could the Colts fire him? What if the Colts were struggling four years down the road? While Pagano showed courage in his fight against cancer, why does this entitle him to an NFL head coaching job? The Colts organization has a dual mandate to compete for NFL championships and to be profitable, while Pagano's fight against cancer was heroic, does it prove his capability of accomplishing either one of those goals? As a more extreme example, would the Eagles have to keep Andy Reid if he developed cancer?

I really do not know the answers to many of these questions and, from what I can tell, Chuck Pagano will be a great head coach, so many of them will be irrelevant. I do know that our society oversimplifies these questions. Always taking the side of the cancer survivor may be safe and may feel good, but our obligation to them is finite. At some point, we have to start treating them like normal members of society. I do not profess to know where that line should be drawn, but the Colts may have to draw it within the coming years.