What is going on with the Indianapolis Colts right now? The team has fired head coach Frank Reich, which wasn’t altogether surprising. What sent shockwaves through the NFL world was the fact that Jim Irsay decided to give the reins of the team for the remainder of the 2022 season to former Pro Bowl and All-Pro center Jeff Saturday. It feels weird even typing these words, but these are facts and this is the bizarre NFL world we’re living in here in 2022.
First things first, let’s break down all that’s been going on with the Colts lately before getting into the madness that is hiring Jeff Saturday as the team’s interim head coach.
Indianapolis Colts are either pioneers or lunatics in 2022
Just last week, the Colts made the decision to fire offensive coordinator Marcus Brady. The week before that, they effectively benched Matt Ryan for young Sam Ehlinger. The writing has been on the wall for the team’s eventual firing of head coach Frank Reich, which happened on Monday, November 7.
The Colts became the second NFL team to fire its head coach this season with the Carolina Panthers moving on from Matt Rhule earlier in the year. Reich and Brady were really scapegoats for the Colts being in quarterback purgatory. It was surprising in the offseason when Indianapolis GM Chris Ballard opted to swing a trade for Matt Ryan, who was clearly on the downside of his career with the Falcons, over any other quarterback options available.
Reich will unquestionably land on his feet somewhere and perhaps even be a coveted retreat head coach on the next cycle. But the Colts’ decision to bring on Jeff Saturday as the interim head coach? Now that’s a shocker.
Saturday is part of the Colts’ Ring of Honor. He’s been a consultant for the team, apparently. But the Colts have former NFL head coaches like John Fox and Gus Bradley already on their staff. This is clearly a move to be a bit experimental on the part of Jim Irsay, who is utilizing the rest of the 2022 season to see if perhaps a former player who has very little coaching experience (Saturday was the head coach of a high school team in Georgia from 2017-2020) and none at the NFL level can now lead an NFL locker room.
The NFL locker room will certainly not be an unfamiliar environment for Saturday. Nor will it be unfamiliar for him to be around the Indianapolis Colts’ facility. But no matter how familiar Saturday is with everything in Indianapolis, this remains a mysterious and very risky move.
Without Marcus Brady or Frank Reich on the staff, nobody with the Colts currently has called plays in the NFL.
Here’s one of the biggest issues that new Colts’ interim HC will encounter once he arrives in Indianapolis later today: no one on his staff has called NFL plays before. It will be one of Saturday’s first orders of business, figuring out who will call plays Sunday vs. the Raiders. https://t.co/MGiy2TmIWS
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) November 7, 2022
I think you have to really give the Colts credit for going out on a limb here and taking a massive risk, but they probably don’t see it as a massive risk. They probably look at the 2022 season as either lost or a reason to experiment, and perhaps this has been percolating in Jim Irsay’s mind for quite some time. It’s entirely possible that he’s been wanting to try this, and has been looking for a reason to do it.
It’s not the same exact type of situation, but the shock right now with Jeff Saturday taking over as interim head coach is somewhat similar to when the Nets hired Jason Kidd just a couple of weeks after his playing career ended and he went from being a grizzled veteran player to being a rookie head coach with no coaching experience whatsoever, much less in the NBA.
Perhaps Irsay has seen the quick transition of some player-coaches in other leagues and feels like something like that should be done in the NFL. Regardless, the Colts are now going to be under the microscope going forward if for no other reason than the fact that everyone will be very curious to see how Saturday manages a team on Sundays.