Hours after he was named the interim coach of the Indianapolis Colts following the firing of Frank Reich, Jeff Saturday was asked at his introductory news conference Monday night how he would have characterized the move in his previous role as an NFL analyst for ESPN.
NFL Reset: Team rankings, Saturday’s chance, Ravens’ threat, OBJ’s choice
It is a crazy situation, and it is an unprecedented opportunity for Saturday, the former all-pro center for the Colts who is a member of the team’s Ring of Honor. He has no coaching experience above the high school level. And yet he’s now an NFL head coach.
“He was the best guy,” Colts owner Jim Irsay said Monday. “That’s why. I mean, there’s no other mystery behind that. . . . Let’s be very clear: This thing was driven by what [General Manager Chris Ballard] and I see in his excellence and his readiness and who he is. If he turns us down, we’re not here today.”
As recently as Oct. 30, Saturday was writing on Twitter that the Raiders “look horrible.” Two weeks later, he will be coaching against the Raiders in Las Vegas in his debut Sunday.
“I have no preconceived notion that I’m going to be some spectacular anything,” he said. “I know I’ve got to work hard. I’m auditioning not only for this one but for 31 others, just like everybody else in this game. And make no mistakes, man: The job is [to] win. I know that’s what I’m here to do.”
Saturday had done consulting work for the Colts, and Ballard said Monday that the team had attempted to hire him multiple times as an assistant coach. Saturday said he had prepared for a coaching career by keeping lists in recent years of potential staff members, on the advice of San Francisco 49ers General Manager John Lynch.
“I don’t pretend to be the smartest guy in the room,” Saturday said. “I’m here to make the guys who are really smart even better. What can I give them? I’ve been with Hall of Famers, whether that be player, coach, general manager. I’ve seen great leadership at its pinnacle. And I’ve learned a lot. … But I think that’s probably my strongest quality is I’m a leader of men. I don’t shy away from it.”
He said he will stick with Sam Ehlinger at quarterback as he tries to turn around a team that has struggled to a record of 3-5-1.
“Defensively, I would tell you, we’re playing pretty good football,” Ballard said. “Offensively is where we’ve got to make some hay. We’ve not played as well up front as we need to play. You all have been kicking the [stuff] out of me for years for not drafting wideouts. And all of a sudden, I look up and we’re underperforming on the offensive line right now.”
The Colts really never have recovered from the shocking retirement of quarterback Andrew Luck just before the 2019 season. They’ve had a new starter at quarterback each season since then. And now Irsay has resorted to making an in-season coaching change to someone who wasn’t even a coach.
“In 27 years, I never had a quarterback retire on me at age 29 in his prime,” said Irsay, who expressed strong support for Ballard as the team’s GM. “So things change. … You never like to make a [coaching] change, much less during the season. It’s not ideal. But in Chris and I talking, we saw things collapse. And I’ve seen things go from bad to worse. And I thought it was time, and it was necessary to make the change.”
Top five teams
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They weren’t particularly sharp but won Thursday night in Houston. The NFL’s only unbeaten team has a long break before Monday night’s matchup at home with the Commanders. |
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Patrick Mahomes had to throw 68 passes and make some big plays as a runner in the OT triumph Sunday night over the Titans. He’s great. But the Chiefs can’t ask quite that much of him too often. |
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3. Vikings |
Kirk Cousins won at FedEx Field, and the Vikings are 7-1. Is it time to believe? It might be getting close. But the Bills and Cowboys are up next on the schedule. |
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4. Cowboys |
They return from their bye for an interesting game Sunday at Green Bay. The Packers have been dreadful. But can Aaron Rodgers still summon some turn-back-the-clock, on-field magic? |
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The loss Sunday to the Jets in the Meadowlands was a bit of a problem. Josh Allen’s elbow injury could be a much bigger problem. |
No minority interview required
The Colts did not have to comply with the NFL’s requirements to interview minority candidates for a head coaching vacancy. Those rules do not apply to the in-season hiring of an interim coach. Indianapolis will be required to comply in the offseason when it hires a permanent head coach.
“There’s no talk of permanence at this point,” Irsay said Monday. “Right now, it’s an interim head coaching position. And then when the season ends, we will have an interview process, and we’ll see where it goes from there.”
Irsay defended the Colts’ record of hiring minority coaches such as Tony Dungy and Jim Caldwell.
“There is no problem or perception,” he said, “except some of you guys make a problem or perception. … We’re following the Rooney Rule to a ‘T.’ And I really look forward to an interview process at the end of the season.”
The Fritz Pollard Alliance, the diversity group that works closely with the NFL on its minority hiring, said in a statement Monday: “The Rooney Rule is the only universal hiring policy used by the NFL to promote fairness and diversity. However, today’s news in Indianapolis illuminated a gap in the league’s stated objective. If the spirit of the rule is to expand opportunities, we believe that it must be consistently applied, even in the hiring of interim positions.”
Bottom five teams
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28. Packers |
If that loss at Detroit wasn’t rock bottom, watch out. That was about as awful as it gets. |
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29. Cardinals |
Remember when Kliff Kingsbury and Kyler Murray were going to do wonderful things together in the NFL? That seems like such a long time ago now. |
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30. Raiders |
The second installment of Josh McDaniels as an NFL head coach is about as unsightly as his first go-round in Denver, at least so far. |
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31. Panthers |
Other than that 35-0 halftime deficit, things went pretty well Sunday for the Panthers in Cincinnati. |
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32. Texans |
Maybe sports fans in Houston are too preoccupied with the Astros’ World Series triumph to pay much attention to the ills of their one-win football team. The Texans should hope that’s the case. |
The threat of the Ravens
For much of this season, a rematch between the Buffalo Bills and the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC championship game has felt inevitable. The Bills and Chiefs mostly have done their part to bolster that perception, with matching records of 6-2.
But there are some threats lurking from other AFC contenders. One team that could be among the biggest obstacles for the Bills and Chiefs in January is the Baltimore Ravens.
The Ravens improved their record to 6-3 with their 27-13 victory Monday night in New Orleans. That sent them into their bye week on a three-game winning streak.
“We feel pretty good,” quarterback Lamar Jackson said afterward. “But the season’s not over. It’s just one week off. … We’ve still got to stay locked in. The season’s ahead of us.”
The Ravens have had a double-digit lead in each game this season, squandering such advantages in their defeats to the Miami Dolphins, Bills and New York Giants. They have an obvious deficiency at wide receiver following Rashod Bateman’s season-ending foot surgery. But they certainly can run the ball, posting eight straight games with at least 150 rushing yards. And their defense became more formidable with the addition of linebacker Roquan Smith in a deal with the Chicago Bears before the trade deadline.
They’ll return from their bye to play the league’s easiest schedule over the remainder of the season.
“I feel it puts us in a very good, comfortable position right now,” Jackson said. “We’ve just got to keep doing what we’re doing, stay locked in, keep cleaning up the little details here and there. I feel like the sky’s the limit for us.”
OBJ’s choice
Wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. could be nearing a return. Fox reported Sunday that Beckham is expected to be cleared this week as he works his way back from the torn ACL in his left knee that he suffered during the Super Bowl in February while playing for the Los Angeles Rams.
Beckham is a free agent and has been linked to the Bills, Rams, Chiefs, Giants, 49ers, Dallas Cowboys and Green Bay Packers.
Cowboys owner Jerry Jones expressed his interest during his regular radio appearance Tuesday on a Dallas-area station.
“We have all the appreciation in the world for what [Beckham] is as a competitor,” Jones told 105.3 the Fan. “And I know that the Cowboys star on that helmet, when he puts it on, it could look pretty good.”
Source: WP
