David Hookstead
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Jim Irsay went on offense after Colts interim coach Jeff Saturday started his NFL coaching career with a win.
When Irsay named the former Colts star and current pundit the team’s interim coach, he was immediately hit with serious criticism.
Most notably, Joe Thomas and Bill Cowher acted like what Irsay had done was completely indefensible.
After the Colts beat the Raiders, Irsay hopped on Twitter late Monday afternoon and let people know they should keep the same energy.
If you’re going to talk big about a hiring decision, you better not run and hide once things go the other way. Many people expected Jeff Saturday to get embarrassed Sunday against the Raiders.
Again, the man had zero coaching experience. It’s not hard to understand why people expected him to flop. It would have made a lot of sense if he’d failed.
Yet, that’s not what happened. Saturday and the Colts pulled off an unexpected 25-20 win.
Did the old guard want Jeff Saturday to fail?
You know why the loudest critics in the world of the NFL are unhappy? It’s because Jeff Saturday walking off his couch, joining an NFL team as the franchise’s leader and going 1-0 proves it’s not as hard as people want you to think.
Judging from the way Cowher talked, you’d think being an NFL coach was similar to being the pointman on the raid to ace Osama Bin Laden. If Saturday had gotten blown out in his debut, that narrative would likely have continued.
Instead, Jim Irsay’s Colts got a huge win, and the perception it’s an insane job that requires an unreal amount of time has kind of been shattered. It’s a bit strange how you don’t hear as much chatter and sniping anymore. Weird, right? Maybe people all stopped having access to wi-fi late Sunday.
Props to Irsay for chirping back after his guy got a huge win. You love to see it.
Jeff Saturday is NOT some “lucky fan” who won a contest to be “Colts Head Coach For A Day”. He has spent the past 20 years directly involved in Big Time Football at both major college and NFL levels … and as a respected NFL observer/analyst for ESPN.
He has been a member of a Super Bowl winning organization … been in innumeable meetings and on sidelines for literally 100s of games.
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No, not any foam-fingered galoot can coach a professional football team. Jeff Saturday is NOT some goggle-eyed galoot on a message board nor is Jeff Saturday an OUTKICK fan-boy who scours those message boards for a living.