The Indianapolis Colts have fired Ryan Grigson as general manager after five seasons.

Chuck Pagano will be retained at least for the 2017 season as head coach.

Grigson was under contract for three more seasons.

"It was gut, intuitive, instinct from looking at where we were and where we are as a franchise," Irsay said. "I think that we needed to make a change, I felt. Intuitively you get the feeling when the timing's right where a change will help and whereas continuity is something that I really want and long to have as much as we can have it, but in this case I really felt the time was right to make a change. We needed some new direction just in the vision of our football program. That's from talking to a lot of people and giving it a lot of thought."

There also had been uncertainty about Pagano's future, but Irsay left no question there: "He's our coach for 2017."

Irsay said he has already compiled a list of candidates -- one that will not include Peyton Manning -- and plans to start an extensive search for a new GM.