Shane Steichen has a broken locker room, and it's up to him now to fix it

Three team captains told reporters Sunday they have issues with teammates who lack commitment and professionalism. Things are not going well on West 56th Street.

Shane Steichen has a locker room problem.

I started to get the sense a few weeks ago when I was casually talking to a veteran about AD Mitchell’s early-season aversion to contact. He nodded and said, “Yeah, we’ve got a LOT of young guys who need to learn how to be pros.”

I didn’t think a lot of it at the time; the Colts were still a .500 football team and Anthony Richardson was still starting.

Sunday, though, it reached a crisis point, with three captains – Kenny Moore II, Zaire Franklin and Julian Blackmon – publicly airing their grievances, questioning the commitment and professionalism of some of their teammates, ostensibly their younger teammates.

Who were they pointing at? Somewhere, you’ve got to imagine Anthony Richardson is among the targets; there’s a reason he’s not starting, and it’s not entirely performance-based. But he’s not a lone target, by any means. What matters is, Moore, Franklin and Blackmon, all three of them true pros who’ve proven themselves in this league, felt compelled to sound the alarm on this dumpster fire. And while they spoke individually, they communicated with one, unified voice.

Steichen has a locker room problem and an accountability problem. That’s not me saying it; that’s coming from three long-time Colts who’ve paid their dues. They see a team where players are taking short cuts in their off-field work and preparation, and they’re not getting called out for it. And, frankly, it pisses them off to no end. These are not players who routinely call out teammates or air dirty laundry. There was a very specific reason for this: To grab everybody’s attention. When the team met Monday, they talked about the comments, so that’s a start.

Here's what Moore, Blackmon and Franklin had to say Sunday: