There's no way Jim Irsay can justify bringing back Jeff Saturday as Colts head coach
One more game, Indianapolis Colts fans. For those of you who are still watching these games, there’s just one more week left.
Indianapolis lost its sixth straight game with Jeff Saturday as interim head coach, getting absolutely clobbered 38-10 by the playoff-bound New York Giants on Sunday. Saying the Colts are currently directionless is too kind. They actively dropped a bomb on their season with a slew of rash moves that ended up cratering. They're 4-11-1 and their season has been so bad recently that it’s easy to forget it didn't have to be.
The Colts started 3-2-1 and were 3-5-1 when former head coach Frank Reich was let go so that the franchise could get a head start on its next era. Firing Reich might have been rash, but it wasn’t totally unjustified. The formula had become stale for the Colts' offense and Indianapolis was really struggling with Matt Ryan as the starting quarterback, even with the OK record.
Just about everything that has happened since that point has been indefensible. Starting Sam Ehlinger in the middle of a quality season made no sense. Hiring Saturday as the interim head coach made no sense and he has been as bad as everyone expected since taking over. The Colts allowed the biggest comeback in NFL history two weeks ago, and Sunday was the third straight week an opponent clinched something against them.
If the Colts are going to return to the ranks of the respectability over the next few years, team owner Jim Irsay has got to just … chill out. Calm down. Take a vacation. Start doing things that make sense. Perhaps bottoming out will be the best move for the Colts in the long term, but it’s hard to have confidence in this mission being carried out successfully based on what this entire season has looked like. It hasn’t been a slow, painful crawl toward the finish line. They were standing on their own two feet to start the season and then decided they didn’t want to have feet anymore. This falls on Irsay.
Prior to the game, NFL Network reported that Saturday was still in contention for the Colts’ full-time head coaching job. How can that be possible?
There hasn’t been anything that has shown that he’s ready for this role right now, and how could he? He had minimal high school coaching experience and no NFL experience prior to this. Saturday isn’t supposed to be good at being an NFL head coach, and he’s not.
Everyone seems to have understood this from the jump except Irsay, which is the biggest problem for the Colts. Irsay wants to have a large role within the organization, which is his right as the owner of the team, but the Colts don’t seem to have a foundation of stability that will lend itself for success. Things need to cool off and get a little more normal for the Colts. The Saturday experience failed. It is what it is, there’s no need to make it worse by letting this fester and rot in 2023. Just start using some logic, Jim.
This Colts' season has been long over and it didn’t have to unfold this way, with a string of firings and benchings, one of the wildest head coaching hires in NFL history, and clear signs of impatience and arrogance along the way. This was a total implosion that inspires no confidence for the future. A bit of advice for Jim Irsay on a New Year’s resolution? Take it easy dude. Just be normal for a few years.
