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Fire Frank Reich who had a winning record with the franchise and hire former Colt center Jeff Saturday with no coaching experience other than high school where he was 2-7 in 2020. Then Saturday comes in and promotes some early 30s special teams , wide receivers assistant to OC, a position the guy has never held . I was surprised by this firing and even more so by the replacement . Should be interesting . Irsay is sure thumbing his nose at conventional wisdom . I see Reich employed next year somewhere with a solid qb .

Hawktawk wrote:Fire Frank Reich who had a winning record with the franchise and hire former Colt center Jeff Saturday with no coaching experience other than high school where he was 2-7 in 2020. Then Saturday comes in and promotes some early 30s special teams , wide receivers assistant to OC, a position the guy has never held . I was surprised by this firing and even more so by the replacement . Should be interesting . Irsay is sure thumbing his nose at conventional wisdom . I see Reich employed next year somewhere with a solid qb .

I was a bit surprised at the firing of Reich and thought that they would have/should have waited at least until the Colts were eliminated from playoff contention, but like you, I was very surprised at Jeff Saturday's naming as interim HC. The Colts still have over half of their schedule to play and are only 2 games out of first place and still very much in the hunt for a playoff bid, so it would have made sense to pick one of the two very qualified coaches with HC experience that they already have on their staff, ie Gus Bradley and John Fox, to guide the team rather than bringing in an almost complete outsider with no coaching experience outside of high school.

That's not to take anything away from Jeff Saturday. He's a very good player in his own right and has been in and around football for a long time. He could turn out to be an excellent head coach. But this decision reeks of cronyism, that he's a personal friend of the owner.

According to PFT the new OC is a pass game specialist/assistant quarterbacks coach. So it's not like running the Offense is a foreign concept.
I wonder if this is a move to tank to get one of the top QBs in this draft. Kind of like what happened when they drafted Luck.

NorthHawk wrote:According to PFT the new OC is a pass game specialist/assistant quarterbacks coach. So it's not like running the Offense is a foreign concept.
I wonder if this is a move to tank to get one of the top QBs in this draft. Kind of like what happened when they drafted Luck.

Yeah suck for luck . How did that work out ? If irsay thought Manning had Star Wars stats and not much hardware I wonder what he thought of go on take the money and run ? It shows why this franchise qb thing is such a crapshoot

We'll, Irsay acts like he's whacked about half the time, so I guess that we should expect something like this. With zero head coaching experience, this DOES seem like a tank job. The had two former head coaches on staff (Bradley and Fox) who could have finished the season. Weird.

...now while most have howled at the pick, Bill Polian thinks Saturday has potential.

TriCitySam wrote:We'll, Irsay acts like he's whacked about half the time, so I guess that we should expect something like this. With zero head coaching experience, this DOES seem like a tank job. The had two former head coaches on staff (Bradley and Fox) who could have finished the season. Weird.

...now while most have howled at the pick, Bill Polian thinks Saturday has potential.

I watched Saturday's interview on GMF this morning. He sounded like a 35-year-old Pete Carroll on a sugar high. So yeah, he has potential. But think of what must be going through the minds of the players and coaching staff.

I've seen some really odd promotions to HC that turned out badly, like Jim Zorn and Mike Singletary, two former players that had limited coaching experience, ie never a coordinator, and it ruined their careers as neither one was ready. This one has that same smell to it.

I'm not sure he will like it, anyway. He has a family that he won't see much of and unless they turn it around he will probably be miserable losing.
So can he pretty much say goodbye to his wife and kids for a few months? I think that's the biggest question.

Yeah this ^dude already has plenty of money and a guy sitting in a studio talking football for a million or more . Talk about a dream job . Now no life unless you want to suck and get fired anyway .
I like the guy and a great center is as cerebral as any position on a team . Can he lead men ?
I’m with TCS irsay must be on his meds again

Or off his meds/back on the bottle…

Well, Saturday won his first game as a head coach as they hung on to beat the hapless Raiders.

Is that because of a change of coach giving a bit of a bump to the team or was Reich getting stale in his play calling?
The rest of the year will tell the story.

NorthHawk wrote:Is that because of a change of coach giving a bit of a bump to the team or was Reich getting stale in his play calling?
The rest of the year will tell the story.

Or was it because they played one of the worst teams in the league?

Saturday reinstalled Matt Ryan as starter and also welcomed back Jonathan Taylor from injury who rushed for 142 yards and a 66 yard TD.
So far so good for Saturday . I like the guy personally . Might wind up a smart move .