The Colts turn to Saturday for Sundays
By AUSTIN LAWTON
ISL Contributor
INDIANAPOLIS— A season of some very minor ups and a whole lot of downs continued for the Indianapolis Colts on Monday, after announcing that coach Frank Reich would be relieved of his duties. A string of three losses in a row plus a humiliating defeat at the hands of the New England Patriots, would ultimately seal the deal for Colts owner, Jim Irsay, marking the first time Irsay has ever fired a Head Coach in the middle of the season. Reich leaves the Circle City with a record of 40-33-1 and just two postseason appearances in his five year tenure.
Reich’s firing would not be the only surprise of the day as Irsay announced that former Colts legend, Jeff Saturday would be named the interim Head Coach for the rest of the season. Saturday played for the team from 1999-2011, winning Super Bowl XLI and was inducted to the Colts Ring of Honor in 2015. The former center also served as a “paid consultant” (as quoted by Jim Irsay) for the Colts as well.
“A big thank you to Frank Reich,” said Irsay. “He’s someone that’s very close to the organization, to my family, to myself. I know to Chris and to Jeff, everyone in our organization. So it’s a very difficult and tough day because I told Frank, I was hoping, Chris and him and I, you know we were going to grab that Lombardi Trophy together someday and have that thing and celebrate.”
Irsay continued: “But you know this league is tough and things change and he’s a pro and he understands. He understands this league and this business. It was a difficult decision to make, with great thought, a decision, that gets cultivated over many, many months and years actually. We’re integrating or thinking into understanding when a time is right and when it isn’t because it’s an intuitive thing. There’s no rule book that tells you now you should make a change, now you shouldn’t. It’s something for being in the league 52 years, it’s intuitive.”
The football world is now scratching their collective heads at the decision to turn to Saturday, considering he has no coaching experience in the NFL. After hanging up the cleats, Saturday worked for ESPN on NFL Live, SportsCenter, and various other appearances on the network. Saturday’s previous coaching experience came at Hebron Christian Academy, located in Dacula, Georgia, from 2017-2019. Saturday compiled a 21-16 record and in 2019, led the school to the quarterfinals of the GHSA state playoffs.
It turns out, Saturday was just as surprised as everyone else. “Shocked would be an understatement,” he said. “We had the conversation and it escalated quickly. He asked me, my wife Karen, and he said ‘Hey will you go have a conversation with your wife and make sure she’s on board.’ My son Josh still lives with us at home and you have that conversation. He told me he was going to meet with Chris about it and so we had the conversation, we talked about it and prayed about it and then as the day progressed this morning, we finally came to a conclusion”
Saturday continued: “It was a 12 hour whirlwind. Mr. Irsay keeps later hours than I do. It was a late call and like I said, we had those conversations. I spoke to him and I spoke to Chris for a good length of time and just had good real ‘come to Jesus’ conversations. I knew going in what the expectations were gonna be, the questions that were going to be asked and I feel fully capable, and excited about the opportunity.”
Saturday joins an extensive list that contains Don Shula, Tony Dungy, Tom Landry, and Jim Harbaugh, and many more, as former players in the league to become head coaches, while coming into this interim role without any NFL coaching experience, something that Irsay does not shy away from.
“You know it’s an intuitive decision,” Irsay said. “When I hired Tony Dungy, it was done very methodical, you operate like the CIA. It’s very analytical, it’s very unemotional, it’s very methodical. With in depth, experience, and knowledge and trying to get the feeling for what’s right. Then I wanted a winning coach, a winning playoff coach, a winning coach that was proven to come in with our franchise. Now I’m glad he doesn’t have any NFL experience. I’m glad he hasn’t learned the fear that’s in this league. It’s tough for all our coaches. They’re afraid, they go to analytics and it gets difficult. I mean he doesn’t have all that. He doesn’t have that fear. And there was no other candidate, we were fortunate enough that he was available.”
Saturday will have his hands full of various issues that have plagued this Colts team, with very few positives to work with. Offensive coordinator Marcus Brady was fired just last week, leaving Reich to do the play-calling. Saturday will have to look to either do the play-calling or turn to his staff to take the position.
“I haven’t made a decision yet.” said Saturday, regarding play-calling. “ I’ve interviewed guys and I’m going to continue to interview guys on the staff and going through that. I’ll decide something this evening. I’m drinking from a fire hydrant a little bit. So we’re trying to meet with everybody, get this [press conference] done and I’ll continue that part. I’ve met with the offensive staff, I haven’t had a chance to meet with the defensive staff, but I met with the entire staff and already a few guys and I’ll continue that through the night and come to a conclusion, we’ll roll from there.”
The highly touted offensive line that performed so well last season has seemingly fallen off and cannot find their groove. Against the game at New England, the line gave up nine sacks to second year quarterback, Sam Ehlinger, the most a quarterback was sacked in a single game in the Reich era. Tackle Matt Pryor was once again poor, being benched for Will Fries. Pryor signed a one-year, $5.45 million deal after being traded from Philadelphia. Pryor has rotated around the offensive line this season, playing left tackle, right tackle, and right guard.
Offense and defense are polar opposite sides of the coin for Indy. Offensive weapons Michael Pittman Jr and Jonathan Taylor have proved to be under-used or disappointing this season. Pittman ranks 19th in the league in receiving yards with just 550 and 1 touchdown. Taylor currently ranks 22nd in rushing yards with 462 and and only 1 touchdown. Taylor tallied 18 touchdowns and 1,811 rushing yards last season, for context. Indy ranks 28th in the league in rushing yards and 26th in receiving yards. Rookie Alec Pierce from Cincinatti, has given fans hope as he ranks second on the team in receiving yards with 396 and one touchdown. On defense, Zaire Franklin leads the team with 56 tackles and DeForest Buckner leads the team with five sacks. The Colts have only lost by more than 10 points twice this season, Week 2 in Jacksonville and Sunday in Foxborough.
“Defensively, I would tell you, we’re playing pretty good football. Offensively is where we got to make some hay.” Ballard said. “We have not played as well up front as we need to play.”
“We’re underperforming on the offensive line right now and that’s got to improve. That has to improve. And the turnovers during the year, you just look at it. We’re turning the ball over and we’re turning it over inside our 50. I think we had nine inside the 38 [yard line], 11 inside the 50. You can’t win games turning the football over in this league. Two things: You can’t win when you don’t block and when you turn it over. Makes it hard.”
Quarterback issues also plague the team as well, just in case you forgot. Trading for veteran Matt Ryan in the off-season garnered a lot of buzz around Indy, but nine weeks in, Ryan is benched for Ehlinger, while Nick Foles serves as the backup. Despite being out for two weeks, Ryan sits 12th in passing yards. Ryan threw for nine touchdowns, nine interceptions and a completion percentage of 68.4%. Ryan was sacked 24 times in seven games. In two starts Ehlinger has thrown one interception, zero touchdowns, sacked 11 times, and a completion percentage of 61%.
Ehlinger joins a long list of quarterbacks to start for the Colts since the days of Peyton Manning. Since 2019, the Colts have had six different quarterbacks play for the team in seemingly endless revolving door, searching for the next Manning or Andrew Luck.
“Sam will be the quarterback.” Saturday assured.
Despite the issues, Ballard, Irsay, and Saturday are not ready to wave the white flag to surrender just yet, even with eight games left.
“We got eight games left and I’m not ready to just fire the towel in like everybody else.” said Ballard. “ The world’s going to fire the towel in on us. We’re not throwing in the towel. I talked to the team today, talked to the coaches, visited with Jeff, and we’ll move forward.”
The Colts look ahead to face the Raiders, who are at the bottom of the AFC West with a 2-6 record, in Las Vegas on Sunday as the “Jeff Saturday era” starts and the “Sam Ehlinger era” continues.
