Frank Reich’s days were numbered as head coach of the Indianapolis Colts once team owner Jim Irsay decided he wanted a rebuild. The coach who’d gone 40-33-1 with quarterbacks like Carson Wentz and Jacoby Brissett behind center was simply too competent.
So Reich was served his walking papers after Week 9. In his place came interim coach Jeff Saturday, a man with borderline Hall of Fame credentials on the field and zero experience coaching at any level above high school on the sideline.
Saturday, praised by Irsay as an outside-the-box hire who could make calls without getting bogged down by analytics or even experience, was exactly as overwhelmed as everyone outside the franchise expected. He beat the ongoing disaster of the Josh McDaniels-era Las Vegas Raiders before imploding en route to seven straight losses to end the 2022 season and, most likely, his tenure as a head coach.
This, it turns out, was exactly what Indianapolis needed.
Saturday was an erupting volcano of incompetence as a head coach. No lead was safe in his hands, whether it was 10 points vs. the Philadelphia Eagles or 33 points vs. the Minnesota Vikings or, as Sunday’s season finale showed, seven points in the final 3:30 against the league’s worst team. His teams crumbled into dust under pressure, giving up 99 points in the fourth quarter alone in that seven-game losing streak. The San Francisco 49ers, for comparison, gave up 83 total points in seven games between Week 10 and Week 16.
Saturday wasn’t merely building skyscrapers out of sand and hoping the tide wouldn’t change. He was living proof a layman couldn’t handle this job. He second-guessed himself. He stumbled through clock management. He let fans peer pressure him into bad decisions.
Colts set up for a FG from the 3-yard line. Crowd boos vociferously, like WTF? Jeff Saturday calls a timeout. They decide to go for the fourth down. Get stopped.
Professional football, baby.
— Stephen Holder (@HolderStephen) January 8, 2023
This all served one purpose: to lose games and juice Indianapolis’ draft position. It worked beautifully. The Colts were 4-5-1 on November 14. They were in line for the 15th overall pick in the 2023 NFL Draft when Irsay blasted this Tweet into the universe.
All you critics…you criticize all of us in the NFL for losing…When we make moves to Win… you act so righteous! “Who You Crappin’..”. Just Win,Baby!!🏈✌️
— Jim Irsay (@JimIrsay) November 14, 2022
They finished the year 4-12-1. They will have the fourth selection in this year’s draft. That’s a spot where they could take a non-Bryce Young quarterback like Will Levis or CJ Stroud. It’s also a valuable bargaining chip to land the first overall pick from the Chicago Bears — who don’t need a quarterback, but do have a chance to dictate how the first round will unfold thanks to Saturday’s ability to lose to the Texans and ruin their draft position in the process.
This is the change the Colts desperately need. They existed on the brink of contention throughout the Reich years, operating competently behind plug-and-play passers but never threatening the AFC’s elites. Players like Wentz, Brissett, Philip Rivers and Matt Ryan tried in vain to be Andrew Luck, a player who’d never climbed to the top of his conference but at least inspired hope through his failure. After his retirement, Indianapolis settled for the latter through fleeting moments of the former.
Saturday’s ability to coach like a festering disease, slowly affecting every tendril of his offense until late-stage failure gave way to tragedy, may have been the remedy. The Colts will have their highest draft pick since 2018, where they were slated to select third overall before trading back and gleaning an absolute haul from the Jets. Indy didn’t have to worry about a quarterback then because Luck was slated to return from injury. The deluge of picks received in return were supposed to set him up for the foreseeable future.
But Luck retired after that season and the Colts have been left to simmer like unwanted buffet chowder in the years that followed. Now they’re finally in position to take a franchise quarterback rather than roll the dice with a retread veteran someone else didn’t want.
That, of course, is no sure thing. New York traded into the top three and ended up with Sam Darnold. 2023’s crop of quarterback talent is better than 2022’s woeful class, but there are no surefire franchise players in the mix. Still, years of low-risk, low-reward gambles have given way to a fanbase thirsty for a big bet.
Saturday, through eight games, one win, and an increasingly long list of professional embarrassments, was the man Irsay tasked with finding the game with the best odds and dropping his chips on the table. In that regard — and pretty much solely in that regard — Saturday was a good NFL coach.
