Jim Caldwell Fired: How Recent Colts Shakeups Affect Peyton Manning's Future

It took a little longer than many expected it would, but the Indianapolis Colts fired head coach Jim Caldwell on Tuesday.

The team confirmed the news via a post on its official website, saying only that Caldwell has been "released" of his duties.

The decision to fire Caldwell comes roughly two weeks after the Colts announced the firings of vice chairman Bill Polian and general manager Chris Polian. Ryan Grigson was hired to be the team's new GM last week.

What is going on in Indy is an old-fashioned house cleaning, make no mistake about that. The only question now is whose head might roll next.

That's unclear at the moment, but one's attention obviously turns to longtime quarterback Peyton Manning. The team is going to have to decide whether it wants to keep him. If it does, it will have to pay Manning a $28 million option bonus by March 8.

The big question is whether or not Caldwell's offensive staff will be allowed to stay. Here's how Phil Richards of the Indianapolis Star described the situation:

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Whether or not Caldwell’s entire staff will be jettisoned isn’t clear. To do so would mean a new offensive staff with no working knowledge of the “check with me” no-huddle offense developed over franchise quarterback Peyton Manning’s 14 years with the team.

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If the Colts do decide to pay Manning's bonus and bring him back for the 2012 season, Richards speculates that Manning would have to learn a new offense.

Regardless, Gregg Rosenthal of Pro Football Talk writes that Caldwell and Manning are not necessarily joined at the hip:

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It didn’t make sense to keep Caldwell without knowing Manning’s status. Perhaps the Colts already know what they will do with Manning, but it’s also possible they honestly don’t know if Manning will play again. If the Colts really want to keep Manning, dropping Caldwell shouldn’t be a deal breaker.

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Put all the puzzle pieces together, and you get the sense that Manning may not be a casualty of the Colts' house-cleaning efforts. He doesn't have to be, anyway.

The tricky part, obviously, is how Andrew Luck can/could/will change everything. The universal consensus is that the Colts are going to pick him with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2012 draft, and the team's house-cleaning effort can certainly be viewed as preparation for his arrival. 

I'll point out that the Colts are going to have to make a decision about Manning before they have to make a decision about Luck, but I can only speculate as to how all this will play out.

To this end, I will say that it certainly appears that the Colts are preparing to embark on life after Manning in the very near future, not in a couple years. Drafting Luck would mean a new direction for the franchise, and the organization's overhaul effectively makes it ready for that new direction now, not later.

So if you ask me, this could very well be the end of the line for Manning in Indianapolis. The men he has served under throughout his career with the Colts are gone now, and it's simply hard to justify committing so much money to him given his recent health woes.

I'll reiterate that this is just me speculating, but the Colts organization is sending some pretty clear messages with this ongoing shakeup.