What The Hell Is Going On In Indianapolis
WHAT
THE
FUCK
Right? Did you say that when you saw the news of Jeff Saturday? I would wager the vast majority of us either said it or thought it. The Indianapolis Colts sent Monday into chaos by first announcing the firing of Frank Reich. While not entirely out of left field, the timing was undoubtedly unexpected. The Colts looked awful on Sunday and many of us (myself included) fancied Reich a dead man coaching as soon as the weird choice to bench Matt Ryan for Sam Ehlinger broke. But to see Reich ended mid-season was still a solid eyebrow-raiser. Well. We’d have some nice discussion content this week!
Roughly an hour later all hell broke loose.
I must have stared at the announcement tweet by Shefter for 5 minutes trying to figure out if it was a fake account and I was being punked. I then scrambled to look and see if Saturday has been on the Colts as a coach in some capacity and I just didn’t know, and I was confounded to discover that no, I was not missing anything. The Colts indeed hired their former all-pro center, with no NFL or collegiate coaching experience, AT ALL, to the interim position. WHAT THE FUCK
There is so much to unpack here. I’ll try to get to all I can think of, but the past few days have been a whirlwind of laughter and genuine shock.
Once my brain managed to process that this was actually happening, my initial reaction was absolute jubilation. Those of you who have been around a while know my penchant for chaos. I desire nonsense. I crave it. The disaster of the unknown feeds my soul. This is, without a doubt, EXTREMELY HIGH CHAOS. (So much that it has inspired something else on my end that should be revealed in the next week). A team hiring a former player with no experience to hold down the fort for half a season is unprecedented and I am EXTREMELY here for it. I have no idea how any of this will go. I just know the Colts are now a must-watch. They are an out-of-control train screaming down the tracks and I’m sitting there with a bag of popcorn waiting for the whole thing. But my personal preferences for nonsense aside, there is a lot more to this that is less fun.
I’ll start off with another positive though. I’ve long held the belief that interim coaches should be experiments and free testing of unproven talent. It’s so painful when you see a team fire a coach midseason and then give the job to a Romeo Crennel or Steve Wilks. They already had the job once. They sucked. Nobody wants to watch these dudes who already failed hold down a fort for 4+ weeks. This is the best time in the world to give an unproven body a test run. Grab a hotshot coach from the assistant staff, someone up and coming, and give them the reigns. What’s the harm here? Every coach is likely getting fired by season’s end anyway, let someone try to prove themselves before they go into the wild. The Jason Garretts and Jon Foxes of the world will have little trouble finding more work, but the other guys without that resume…give them that spotlight. We’ve had plenty of good coaches start out from this spot. Bruce Arians was technically an interim when Pagano got sick. Dan Campbell filled in for Miami after Philbin got canned. Interims should be a free opportunity to give back to the lesser names. So in that respect, I am all for the Colts being unconventional here. The problem is they steered too far in the opposite direction.
The Colts didn’t give the job to anyone on their staff. They didn’t give the job to anyone on another staff. They took a former player with no credentials outside coaching a high school football team for a few years. It’s the Josh McCown for Houston story, only it actually happened. The Colts had both options for interims on their staff. Jon Fox and Gus Bradley were the old experienced fogies that none of us wanted to watch but would do the job. Bubba Ventrone could have been an option though, and Reggie Wayne, while fresh, is also a former player who could have theoretically done this job. Several other options with lots of experience at other non-HC positions. Why not give it to one of these guys? Why pass over all of them for Jeff Saturday?
So this is basically an insult to everyone on staff and an alarming precedent to other teams’ staff. While I hate the same old cycle of guys getting the jobs over and over, at least they put the work in to get there. Jeff was just chilling at ESPN doing analysis and got promoted over everyone, even for what we all assume is basically a temp job. This is not to mention the entire race angle, which has become a more visible concern in recent years. Black coaches struggle to get promotions year after year and fight tooth and nail to make it, but the gigs are routinely given to retread white guys who already failed before (like McDaniels) or, more recently, young white guys with some tie to a successful experimental coach, aka the McVay effect. Sometimes, and this always seems to bust out, guys are given jobs because they bolstered their resumes by working with a legend who really didn’t need them. AKA Adam Gase and now, Nathaniel Hackett. Todd Bowles, one of the few black coaches to break through, got hired as an interim in Miami after Sparano. The system can absolutely work in these guys’ favor. Passing them all over for a former player you are a friend with is fucked up.
None of this is meant as an insult to Jeff Saturday, more of a systemic issue and an insult to Irsay. Jeff is by all accounts, a nice guy. But I also have to wonder what the hell his role is in all this. Why did Jeff even take the job? Did Irsay send a mayflower truck of money to his house? Is he there to be a functional babysitter and report on the roster as a toadie to Irsay or is he actually there to potentially be the guy? I don’t know! Jeff’s participation in this farce is the most puzzling to me. He could have entered the coaching circles at any time these past ten years. He could have gotten a job in the Colts organization any time this past decade. He didn’t. He was an ESPN analyst and coached a little bit at a podunk high school. What was Irsay’s pitch and why did Jeff say yes? None of the answers we naturally speculate here are particularly flattering.
This brings me to my final point, and the one likely to get me in trouble. Is Irsay…doing okay?
Maybe it’s me being influenced by watching the artist formerly known as Kanye West have public bipolar manic episodes tanking his reputation but Irsay’s behavior recently is kinda strange. He’s had documented issues with addiction and mental health concerns. He’s certainly no stranger to being weird. Benching Matt Ryan was odd, but in a vacuum was fairly simple to come up with explanations for. Calling out Snyder publicly was great, but also not something owners normally do. Now this entire mess. In the press conference announcing Saturday he almost sounded unhinged, making bizarre quotes and being borderline hostile to reporters. I’m worried Irsay is having some more personal difficulties, and I’d say he deserves empathy for that, but these decisions are affecting a lot of people and if he is indeed having some trouble I hope he can right the ship soon.
I have no idea what the hell is going on in Indianapolis but I guess we will just have to see where this roller coaster goes from here.
This is the colts trying to tank AGAIN for another generational qb. I fuckig hate the Colts for this exact bullshit.
Also, I guarantee you Irsay tried to ask Peyton first.
Peyton might have done well, though. He was a very good offensive coordinator all those years he played QB.
I’m now thinking about the SNL skit where Peyton was trying to coach a bunch of kids
Truly a masterpiece.
100% agree. If they land a third one by being awful as just the right time, they deserve to be every bit as hated as the Yankees. And let me tell you, no fan base deserves it less. I can’t count how many people told me with glee that they just stopped watching football altogether the years that Peyton or Luck were hurt. My college roommate was a long time season ticket holder, and said he used to routinely see a mass exodus in the 3rd quarter if they were losing, and that was during the Peyton Manning years when they had many huge comebacks. They don’t deserve nice things.
This is completely off topic, but that fourth panel should be a meme, or at least a reoccurring joke
WHAT
THE
FUCK
Well said
There’s probably some Occam’s Razor answers at both ends.
With Irsay, it probably was a “Fuck it! Let’s experiment! Season’s lost anyway” idea, but taken to an unhinged extreme (bc it’s Irsay) with dashes of “I like the guy. Everyone seems to like him. I owe him the chance” and “He’s my friend, he’ll keep me in the loop” thrown in. Also Irsay’s dopey enough to think he’s an analyst on TV that’s HC-ish seem in character (and in line with the rumor going around about him trying to add Orlovsky to the coaching staff).
For Saturday, what has he got to lose? He’s probably at least been somewhat curious about coaching and he’d likely regret passing up the chance. Worst comes to worst it’s a mess for half a season and he just returns to TV in a few months and has some good anecdotes to share for years.
Also the specific touch of specifying a Mayflower truck was a nice touch considering the Irsay’s history.
Are we sure Jack Easterby hasn’t been seen in and around Indianapolis?
I was also thinking this is an apt comparison. Except that they HIRED Jack Easterby, not just let him make the hire.
Also, I disagree on Fox or Bradley being sad retreads like some of the other interims mentions. Bradley made a SB as a head coach, and was the architect of the Seattle defense that took them to 2. John Fox made a Super Bowl with two different teams. They didn’t suck the first time around
It’s ridiculous to suggest that Irsay is racist and hiring Saturday has anything to do with his race. It’s choas and probably a legitimate attempt to tank toward the #1 pick.
Dave didn’t suggest that Irsay was a racist. What he said was that it highlights the *systematic* racism built into the NFL coaching – that coaching hires, interim or not, are rarely other than white dudes, many of them ones which have tried and failed before. (And the Rooney Rule only applies during interviews, and doesn’t apply to interim hires.)
It’s not that Irsay reaching out to Saturday was racist in and of itself, but as mentioned, Reggie Wayne is *RIGHT THERE*. On the Colts coaching staff. He knows the players, the other coaches, and the playbook. If you’re going to pick a random ex-player to take over on an interim basis, he’d be the more logical choice. (Of course, this is Irsay we’re talking about, and logic doesn’t really enter into the picture that often.)
Nobody tanks.
The Colts literally already did. They played Curtis Painter for most of a season during which they had other options at QB, and wound up with Andrew Luck. Anybody with eyes could see they were tanking thru management decisions (the players themselves weren’t tanking, they just played the ones that sucked. *cough* Sam Ehlinger *cough*)
I’d like to remind everyone who thinks the Colts went into 2011 with the plan to tank that until about halfway through the season, the narrative was that they were just trying to hang in there until Peyton came back
Went into the season with the plan? No. Executed it once it was clear Peyton wasn’t coming back and they were too deep in the hole to dig out even if he did. 1000%. I lived in Indiana during that season.
No, you tree stump of a person, nobody tanks. Drop this stupid fucking meme already. The notion of tanking is a dumb as the notion of playing to tie. The 2011 Colts weren’t secretly super good pretending to be bad. No. They were fucking trash. Kerry Collins was a washed up retiree who was concussed in the very first game. Curtis Painter was genuinely bad. The noodle armed corpse of 2011 Peyton Manning was bad. Dan Orlovsky was bad. Nobody. Fucking. Tanks. Nobody tanks. Especially not for prospects who may or may not bust. If that were the case, the Browns, Jags, and Texans would be winners of multiple superbowls.
Nobody tanks. Drop the damned meme already.
It’s not a meme. It’s observing football with two eyes, and living in that area and hearing all the reporters who covered the Colts and had insider information published at the time. If you’re saying PLAYERS don’t tank, I 100% agree with you. If you think management doesn’t, you are choosing to ignore verified information because it doesn’t fit your narrative.
Remember the 2014 case where the Bucs, in the final game of the year, were winning and halftime against the Saints by double digits, then removed almost all their starters and lost, thus securing the 1st pick in the draft (which would likely have been lost if the won)? Reports showed the Colts knew Peyton was highly unlikely to be back in 2011, yet they went forward with Collins/Painter/Orlovsky rather than doing what many teams have done in that situation and traded for a real QB. They made no effort to improve their weapons. The 2021 Texans let JJ Watt walk, hired David Culley as a coach, and voluntarily sat DeShaun Watson for the entire season – were those moves so they could win a lot of games? There’s literally a lawsuit going forward right now with the Dolphins and Flores where he alleges the owner offered him money to tank. That’s not a meme. That’s actual evidence in each case that teams were not putting forth their best effort to win.
This is absolutely perfect, and made me LOL on a fairlt stressful day…thank you!
So I guess he only watched the first season of Ted Lasso.
TBH I think him not giving the nod to anyone already on the staff is most likely a signal that he plans to clean house entirely at the end of the year and fire everyone, or at the very least he’s putting all of their jobs in the hands of the coach he hires on a permanent basis. In that regard, hiring Saturday is almost a mercy in that he’s not making someone else handle managing the circus of a doomed coaching staff in the middle of a tank, with no prospects of a permanent promotion.
It’d be cool if hires Flores after the season’s over, though.
I’m just waiting for Indianapolis to hang the “Top Quartile of the Upper Quartile of the NFL” banner at their next home game tbh.
Like I said somewhere else: The Colts currently can’t figure out Sundays, so they hired Saturday and said ‘Eh, close enough.’ This move is out there enough it makes me wonder if Irsay hasn’t fallen off the wagon again…
There is no race angle lol
Congrats on missing the point I was making
I dunno, based on how combative & defensive Saturday is being, I’m not sure if Irsay had to throw much money at him at all. Irsay claims he called Saturday during the Patriots game to complain. What if this entire thing was Jeff’s idea, taking advantage of a mentally challenged old man?
JS: “Dammit, Jim, I know what playoff football looks like. I bet you even *I* could do a better job coaching that team! After all, I coached the vaunted Hebron Christian Academy! Coaching is in my blood!”
JI: “By golly olly, Jeff! WHAT AN IDEA! You’ll start next… (pregnant pause)… SATURDAY!”
BOTH: “WHOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!”
I’d get combative and defencive too if people were treating my getting hired to a dream job as a joke
Fair point, BUT. If he’s as smart as he claims, he should be able to realize how the entire situation looks from the outside, casually nod, and say something to the effect of, “Look, I understand the outrage. But I didn’t hire me, so let’s see how I do before you break out the pitchforks.” The whole defensive spiel about how he knows what coaching looks like because he was around coaches, blah blah blah… not doing him any good.
I don’t wish him ill, especially if Irsay hired him intentionally to tank. But the similarities between what he said and what one David Gettleman said in 2019 when brought in to fix the Giants ring very similarly. Look at these EXACT quotes side by side:
David Gettleman:
“I’ve been to seven Super Bowls. I feel very strongly that I know what it should look like, what it should smell like, what it should taste like.”
Jeff Saturday:
“I went to the playoffs 12 times. I’ve got five dudes in the Hall of Fame that I played with. You don’t think I’ve seen greatness? You don’t think I’ve seen how people prepare? How they coach? How they GM? How they work?”
Me making my case that I should be signed to a $5m book deal:
“I read hundreds of books. I’ve read prize-winning books. You don’t think I’ve seen greatness? You don’t think I’ve seen how authors prepare? How they write? How they work?”
That is eeerie.
Colts fans. If Saturday starts talking about being “in full bloom love” with Ehlinger or picturing anyone in a gold jacket someday, run for the hills (or those giant sand dunes on Lake Michigan)!
Not-so-hot take: Irsay is trying to find the next Mike Vrabel. Remember that the Colts blew themselves up after the second game to Tennessee?
Remember further back in 2018 where Vrabel was almost hired by the Colts, only for them to select McDaniels instead so Vrabel went to TN?
Remember how the Colts have beaten the Titans once in the last 7 games?
Yeah, Irsay is still mad about that hire. And he wants someone to command locker room respect like Vrabel does.
Does that mean Saturday will succeed, or that he should have gotten the job at all? No, and no. But is Irsay’s thought process understandable knowing what we know about their struggles with the Titans? Yes.