When the 2022 NFL season ends the Indianapolis Colts are going to have to make a head coaching decision.
Will they remove the interim tag from Jeff Saturday and make him their new permanent coach? Or will they go outside and bring in a new — and experienced — face?
Owner Jim Irsay said on Thursday that he is looking forward to the search, and while he acknowledged that Saturday wants the job he also made sure to point out there are a lot of qualified coaches that will be available. Including several in the college ranks.
Said Irsay, via Yahoo’s Jori Epstein: “I think there’s a lot of great candidates in college. I think the pool needs to be broadened somewhat more. There’s some great college coaches who may be capable. There are some unknown coaches who may be capable. I believe when you’re searching for a head coach, you unturn every rock & you’re going to hire the best person. I know I really look forward to the interviewing process because it’s very enlightening and you really get to know people through that. Sometimes people come in and just knock your socks off, and that’s exciting.”
This is going to be a fascinating search for a lot of reasons.
For starters, if Irsay was willing to turn his team over to a former player with zero coaching experience in the middle of a season there is no telling what sort of unpredictable hire might follow. Especially since he was extremely critical of the current NFL coaches in the wake of Saturday’s hiring, saying they are too afraid. That makes the “unknown coaches” line so intriguing. Is he simply talking about an assistant somewhere in the league? Or somebody totally off the radar like Saturday was?
His comment about college coaches is also eye-opening.
Other than Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh (who does not seem very inclined to leave the Wolverines) there does not seem to be a clear college candidate ready to make the jump to the NFL. Even if there were, the recent track record of college coaches going to the NFL has been brutal. Harbaugh, when he made the jump from Stanford to San Francisco, is the only one that has really had much sustained success. More often than not they fail very quickly and end up going back to the NCAA ranks.
The Colts are 4-8-1 entering this weekend, and just 1-3 under Saturday. After winning Saturday’s debut game the Colts have lost three games in a row, with the past two having increasingly embarrassing moments. There was the timeout mess at the end of a Monday night game against the Pittsburgh Steelers, which was followed by a complete fourth quarter meltdown in Dallas the next week.
