INDIANAPOLIS — They’re gone, of course. That’s sure how it looks — that’s how it looks to me, anyway — now that Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay has spoken about the futures of coach Chuck Pagano and general manager Ryan Grigson.

“Right now I’m not anticipating making any changes,” Irsay told USA TODAY on Wednesday. “That can always change. It always can when we’re sitting down at the end of the year and evaluate things. But I’m just looking at seeing if we can win these next three games …”

That can always change …

As far as votes of confidence go, we’ve seen stronger ones. Come to think of it, have we ever seen a weaker one? Irsay isn’t "anticipating" making any changes "right now," but that can always change?

If this was Irsay trying to play both sides — supporting Pagano and Grigson, while leaving himself an out to fire them after the season without looking like a liar — this was a failure.

It gets back to what I’ve believed for years: As decent as he is, as well as he means, Irsay does himself no favors by talking to the media (or by tweeting). He’s too honest, too raw — OK, too unsophisticated — to do the public dance required of someone in his position.

Jim Irsay doesn't plan to replace Chuck Pagano or Ryan Grigson, yet doesn't rule it out

When IU athletics director Fred Glass announced on Dec. 1 the firing — sorry, the resignation — of football coach Kevin Wilson on Dec. 1, he danced the verbal dance like Mikhail Baryshnikov. Glass said what he wanted, not what the media wanted. He didn’t answer our questions so much as he used them as opportunities to present his case.

Irsay? He doesn’t dance. He can’t, not with that backhoe he just used to bury Pagano and Grigson.

That can always change …

You ask me, based on those comments from Irsay, the only thing that can change between now and Black Monday is an improbable — dare I say — miraculous finish to this 2016 regular season that sees the Colts win the AFC South and save the jobs of Pagano and Grigson. Now, Irsay did say other things in that interview with USA TODAY, softer things like "I have good men that work their tails off" and " I believe in continuity" and even his favorite mantra, that the first five years of Grigson, Pagano and Andrew Luck "outdid those first five years" of Bill Polian, Tony Dungy and Peyton Manning.

"This group outdid those guys that are in the Hall of Fame," Irsay said.

And still he wanted to fire them after last season. Pagano and Grigson went into the Colts offices on 56th Street expecting as much on Black Monday — the day after the regular season ends, the day NFL coaches are most often fired – and talked themselves into another chance. More than that, they talked themselves into a pair of four-year contracts, with Irsay agreeing with Pagano: His coach and GM should be “tied at the hip.”

Which means there’s no debate over which one to fire. If Irsay decides to make a change, he won't choose Pagano over Grigson, or vice versa. They both stay, or they both go. That’s how it should be.

The craziest thing about this whole saga is that Irsay let Pagano and Grigson — and it was mainly Pagano — talk him out of firing them on Jan. 4. How would you like to have a boss like that? You’re fired … unless you can talk me out of it.

The most passionate speech of your life would come flowing from your mouth, would it not? That’s what happened when the likable, inspirational Pagano met with Irsay, convincing the owner to bring back not only him but also Grigson, showing a better sense of strategy than he has ever shown on the sideline. Afterward, a visibly relieved Grigson said of the coach with whom he had been feuding: “Chuck Pagano is a great man.”

Doyel: Chuck Pagano saves his job ... and Ryan Grigson's

Well, sure. Pagano saved your job. And his. That was Irsay, more fan than owner, hearing what he wanted to hear instead of seeing what his eyeballs were seeing. Never mind that Grigson has put inferior talent on the field, wasted three first-round picks from 2013-15, blown most of his big-money free agent acquisitions. Never mind that Pagano has found a way to make that talent worse, has been a game-day liability, has shown no ability to keep his players disciplined. Never mind that Grigson and Pagano haven't been on the same page.

We can make it work, Jim!

And Irsay fell for it. You see the results. We all do, even Irsay apparently. He sees a Colts team with the best quarterback in the AFC South find itself in third place in this god-awful division, a division led by a team in Houston whose best player (defender J.J. Watt) is injured and whose quarterback (Brock Osweiler) is not only bad, but eating up a huge portion of the salary cap with his $72 million deal.

And that’s the team that came into Lucas Oil Stadium on Sunday and beat the Colts to take control of the AFC South.

Do Pagano and Grigson deserve to be fired? That’s not what I’m saying here. Nor am I saying they deserve to come back. Today, the only opinion that matters belongs to the man who will make that decision. And he has spoken.

And in that clumsy way of his, the way he once compared concussions to taking aspirin, the way he once said Luck should win multiple Super Bowls — before Luck has appeared in one — Irsay has made it sound very much like he has decided to fire his coach and GM.

Not right now, of course.

But that can always change.

Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter:@GreggDoyelStar or atfacebook.com/gregg.doyel