The American ’70s and ’80s rock band Chicago (still playing today) featured the wonderful voice of Peter Cetera and a heavy horns section making their sound a mixture of pop, rhythm and blues and jazz. One of their many hits was “Saturday in the Park,” which takes the listener on a musical journey through a city park on Fourth of July weekend — “with a man selling ice cream, singing Italian songs.” (I was always fond of that line.) Well for Colts fans, every Sunday will be a Saturday in the Park, as their former star center Jeff Saturday is now their interim head coach.
Colts fans started their Monday in not-so-shocking fashion, hearing that Frank Reich had been removed as head coach. With former head coaches Gus Bradley and John Fox already on the staff, my first instinct was they would allow one of them to steer the Colts for the interim. The shock came hours later when owner Jim Irsay announced Saturday would be the interim coach even though he has no coaching experience beyond high school. As the song says: “A bronze man still can tell stories his own way.” Irsay is the Colts fans' version of the bronze man in the park.
Before breaking down the bizarre move of hiring Saturday, let’s examine the Reich era in Indianapolis. He showed promise in his first season with quarterback Andrew Luck under center. The Colts went 7-1 in their last eight games and beat the Texans in the wild-card round before losing to the Chiefs the next week. All hell broke loose the following August when Luck stepped away and Jacoby Brissett had to take over as starting quarterback, resulting in a 7-9 season.
Reich then rearranged his staff and the Colts brought in aging former Charger Philip Rivers to play QB. Reich had coached Rivers in San Diego and was a strong supporter of the veteran having more football left beyond the one year — which he clearly didn’t. When Rivers retired, Reich doubled down to sell the organization on Carson Wentz as the next leader. The Colts went all in, giving up a first-round pick and a third-rounder for Wentz, demonstrating their trust and faith in Reich’s ability to evaluate the position. When the head coach proclaims “trust me on this” it’s hard to ignore, especially when the head coach is supposed to be a quarterback expert having played and coached the position his whole life.