The last few weeks have been a whirlwind for the Colts, a team that was expected to contend in the AFC South this season. The team’s significant offseason quarterback acquisition, former league MVP Matt Ryan, was benched after a 3-3-1 start to the year in favor of Sam Ehlinger. After two more losses, the team fired Frank Reich and brought on ESPN’s Jeff Saturday, a former Colts center with no NFL coaching experience, as interim coach.
The moves seem to indicate that the Colts are looking toward the future, seeing what a young quarterback like Ehlinger can do in an otherwise-lost year and whether Saturday is the type of former player who can make a quick leap into coaching. However, that doesn’t mean that the team has punted on its playoff aspirations, according to owner Jim Irsay, who called the idea that the team is tanking “absurd” to The Athletic‘s Bob Kravitz.
“That’s the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard, that we’re tanking,” Irsay said. “That’s bulls---. We’re in this thing; 9-7-1 get us in, no question about it. … We’re going to do what it takes to win. I don’t know who people think we are, they don’t know us. We don’t tank in Indianapolis.”
Irsay also opened up the potential for another quarterback change, either back to Ryan or to another notable veteran, Nick Foles, stating the move to Ehlinger was due to his “mobility and his playmaking ability” for a team that struggled to keep the relatively immobile Ryan upright in the pocket.
“They’re all available to help us win, bottom line,” Irsay said. “It’s always been about whoever can help us win going forward. We’re going with Sam, and if there’s a notion for Jeff [Saturday] to make a change … that’s Jeff’s prerogative, and it was always Frank [Reich]’s prerogative. It’s wrong to say I mandated it [the move to Ehlinger] and it’s wrong to say they can’t go to the other guy.”
Even after three-straight losses, Indianapolis can conceivably make a run, as Irsay argued. At 3-5-1, the team is two games behind the division-leading Titans (5–3) and current final wild card Chargers (5–3) in the loss column.
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