Jeff Saturday’s Head Coaching Candidacy Begins To Fizzle

At this point, the inmates are running the asylum on this team and the GM, Chris Ballard, has been completely silent since the hiring of Jeff Saturday. The Colts will finish the season at home against the Houston Texans in the most meaningless game of the final week of the season.

Jeff Saturday Didn’t Bring The Interim "Boost"

Saturday’s tenure as head coach is now 1-6 under his direction with six straight losses since the win against Las Vegas that seems ages ago now. Since the firing of Frank Reich, they are now 1-8. Typically, when a coaching change is made you see the team have a "boost" that gives them some hope. Saturday has been unable to achieve that since taking over. In fact, since Saturday was named Interim Coach the Colts have been outscored 212-126 overall and 58-13 the last two weeks.

To make things worse we have not seen any area of this team show any improvement. We have used the term "regression" a lot this season with Indianapolis, but bears notice yet again.

Where Is The Blame For Chris Ballard?

At some point, you must lay some blame on the shoulders of General Manager Chris Ballard. The season expectations were very high in the preseason based on the personnel that would be put on the field. Ballard has shown a knack for finding talent in the draft. No GM is perfect in their evaluations, but he has found some great players in deep rounds that are still contributing at a high level.

However, this season (and for most of his tenure) he missed on the QB position. Since the abrupt retirement of Andrew Luck he has relied on multiple QBs under center. Outside of Philip Rivers (which he knew was a rental) none of them have shown success. He hired Josh McDaniels to coach this team only to be left at the altar and then hired Frank Reich only to have the owner fire him midway through a mediocre tenure. He has not addressed key areas of this team including left tackle, wide receiver, and depth at tight end in free agency.

Ballard has been at the helm for six seasons now and he has a record of 45-51-1 with ZERO division titles and 1 playoff win. Irsay has come out and stated that Ballard is expected to return next season as GM as he is under contract through the 2026 season. But then again, so was Frank Reich.

As We Head To The Finale

If reports are true, then Jeff Saturday will not only get an interview for the permanent coaching job but he truly wants the job after giving himself a crash course this season. There are also other reports that say Jeff Saturday is a strong candidate for the job. Up until these past couple of weeks, we all believed he could be a realistic candidate as the Colts lost but stayed competitive early. These last few weeks have changed the minds of all the fans, and Jeff Saturday is not the man for the job.

The players seemed checked out these past few weeks and there is zero improvement from on the field since he took over for Reich. He is beloved in the city of Indianapolis and rightfully so. He was a key piece to our success in the Peyton Manning era and helped bring the first (and only) Super Bowl to Indianapolis. We know Irsay’s love and nostalgia for his former players but let’s hope he comes into this search with an open mind and checks his ego at the door or the fanbase could be lost forever.

Do you think Jeff Saturday will be the next head coach? Let us know in the comments below!

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