Report: Colts Jeff Saturday ‘Remains Serious Candidate’ as Next Head Coach

According to NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero, Indianapolis Colts interim head coach Jeff Saturday remains a serious candidate for the full-time job entering the 2023 offseason.

For what it’s worth, Saturday wants to continue coaching the Colts too and has some new hires in mind for what would theoretically be an overhauled staff under his tutelage.

Saturday was shockingly inserted into a very challenging coaching situation near mid-season to say the least, by inheriting an already bad football team with no training camp and the inability to make much of any substantial changes with the season already ongoing.

He’s very tough to evaluate because the team was already playing poorly, and he was seemingly placed in a very difficult situation for anyone—even Vince Lombardi, to actually succeed and meaningfully turn things around.

That being said, under his coaching tenure, the Colts were outscored 33-0 by the Dallas Cowboys in the fourth quarter, suffered a 33-0 blown lead to the Minnesota Vikings, and then failed to beat the once lowlier Houston Texans at home in the season finale.

The Colts went 1-7 and had a -87 total point differential under Saturday, and they didn’t just maintain the same lousy losing status quo, they played even worse football.

So if you aren’t going to fully evaluate Saturday on wins and losses, what do you actually evaluate him on? And what did he show to warrant the head coaching job full-time?

Don’t get me wrong, I loved Jeff Saturday as a player, who was an All-Pro center and locker room leader for those Peyton Manning-led perennial Colts’ AFC juggernauts. If he wants to come back as an offensive line coach or a front office player development role, by all means, let him.

It’s a results driven business though, and I just don’t see what Saturday accomplished on the merit to warrant bringing him back as the franchise’s head coach going forward.