Colts Make Changes to Coaching Staff

The Indianapolis Colts announced several changes to their coaching staff this morning.  They have hired Jim Hostler as wide receivers coach and have named Tim Berbenich as defensive assistant, Hal Hunter as offensive line coach, Brad White as outside linebackers coach and Charlie Williams as running backs coach.

Hostler is the only new addition to the staff, while the others are taking on new roles with the Colts.  Hostler was with the Buffalo Bills last season as an offensive assistant, and prior to that he was the wide receivers coach for the Baltimore Ravens from 2008-2013, serving on the same coaching staff as Chuck Pagano for several years.  Before joining the Ravens, Hostler was with the San Francisco 49ers for three seasons - as quarterbacks coach from 2005-2006 and then as offensive coordinator in 2007.  Recently, he has helped young wide receivers such as Sammy Watkins and Torrey Smith, so for a Colts team filled with young receivers in T.Y. Hilton, Donte Moncrief, and Duron Carter, this seems to be a good hire for the Colts.

The other moves are all coaches who were already with the Colts taking on a new role with the team.  Tim Berbenich was an offensive assistant with the Colts for the past two seasons and is now a defensive assistant.  Hal Hunter was the assistant offensive line coach for the Colts the last two seasons and is now the offensive line coach.  It would appear that Hunter was promoted to replace Joe Gilbert, who had previously been the Colts' offensive line coach, but according to the Indianapolis Star's Stephen Holder, that might not be the case:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Colts?src=hash">#Colts</a> source now clarifies that Gilbert is STAYING and will work WITH Hal Hunter. So, it&#39;s going to be a two-man job. News was very vague</p>&mdash; Stephen Holder (@HolderStephen) <a href="https://twitter.com/HolderStephen/status/563701300995436545">February 6, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

So basically, there's not much different with the offensive line coaches, other than that the "assistant" title for Hal Hunter was dropped.  It's strange, however, that the Colts' press release mentioned nothing of this.

Brad White has been with the Colts for three seasons, both as a defensive quality control coach in 2012-13 and then assistant linebackers coach last season.  White is now the outside linebackers coach for the Colts.  Lastly, Charlie Williams has spent the last three seasons as wide receivers coach, and he shifts over to coach the running backs now after the team and David Walker "mutually parted ways."

Ultimately, the Colts have made quite a few positional coach moves, and while it's hard to say for sure whether or not that was really the issue (hint: probably not), it's clear that the Colts felt it necessary to make some moves.  Hopefully, those moves work out.