No, the brunette woman pacing the Indianapolis Colts sideline with headphones and a note pad isn’t a coach, trainer or member of the PR team relaying injury updates to reporters up in the press box.
Rather, she’s actually the team’s CEO since the passing of her father, Jim Irsay, back in May.
Carlie Irsay-Gordon has assumed day-to-day responsibility of team operations, while her sisters Casey Foyt and Kalen Jackson serve as executive vice president and chief brand officer, respectively. But it’s Irsay-Gordon’s impact that has intrigued both fans and players alike after seeing her scribbling away on her notepad along the sidelines in the preseason as well as Weeks 1 and 2.
‘Carlie Irsay-Gordon is going to micromanage her franchise to their disintegration,’ one fan wrote on X, where many others questioned Irsay-Gordon’s level of involvement.
But not everyone is taking a dim view of Irsay-Gordon’s hands-on approach.
Yes, it’s true her father famously allowed his football operations staff do its job without his meddling. Jim even stepped away from the team in 2014 to attend drug rehab, leaving the reins in Irsay-Gordon’s hands.
Irsay-Gordon is pictured with her headphones, notepad and flip card during a Week 1 win
Owner and CEO Carlie Irsay-Gordon watches the Colts play the Packers in the preseason
But Irsay-Gordon has rejected the style a decade later, which Colts safety Cam Bynum appreciates.
‘This is the most involved I’ve seen [an owner],’ Bynum said to Kay Adams on the Up & Adams show. ‘And obviously, I’ve only been in the NFL [for] going on my fifth year, so I don’t have too much experience. She’s just so involved in everything.
‘During OTAs, she was sitting in the defensive meeting with a notebook, [the] same notebook that we’re writing in, writing the installs, asking me, ‘What’s the coverage on this play?’
And this isn’t a new development. Even before her father passed away at 65 in May, Irsay-Gordon was doing her part to learn about football operations by listening in to the chatter between assistant coaches up in the booth and their colleagues on the sideline.
In fact, she’s been monitoring the team’s football operations staff dating back as far as 2012, when Chuck Pagano was hired to coach in Indianapolis.
‘I need to be able to say: “Is this person full of BS?”‘ she told Colts.com earlier this year. ‘Do they even know what they’re talking about?
‘And I think one of the things that being on the headset has really helped me learn is to the question earlier, it’s such a complex organism of football team and how it operates.
‘So much of it comes down to just how we operate and how things work and the headsets – 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.’
Adams particularly liked the image of the 44-year-old Irsay-Gordon rocking a headset.
‘She looks badass, firstly,’ Adams said.
Bynum agreed: ‘I know, with the headset on, that’s fire. That’s hard.’
Jim Irsay looks on during the ceremony for Dwight Freeney at Lucas Oil Stadium in 2024
Irsay-Gordon’s headset doesn’t appear to have a microphone, so it’s not as though she’s calling plays or making suggestions during games.
Instead, it looks as though she’s simply monitoring team procedures, which many fans seemed to appreciate.
‘Love this!’ one fan wrote on X. ‘Multiple billion dollar franchise and she is holding everyone accountable. It’s a select few in the world that can coach, manage and run an NFL organization and it’s her money her choice to hold them to a high standard.’
Many were quick to point out that the Colts are now 2-0 despite entering the season with questions surrounding quarterback and first-round pick Anthony Richardson, who ultimately lost his starting job to free-agent acquisition Daniel Jones.
‘Colts have been on fire, what she’s doing shows she cares and that makes it way down to the coaching which makes its way down to the players,’ one fan wrote. ‘Calling it micromanaging is only because she’s a woman let’s be real.’
