An hour after one of the most bizarre, unhinged and defensive press conferences I could ever remember, I returned home from the Colts practice facility late Monday night and watched the whole thing again.
It was worse, so much worse, than I realized in the moment.
On the left, you had general manager — For now. Remember, Frank Reich was “safe” until he wasn’t — Chris Ballard, his arms crossed, his jaw locked, wearing a stern visage, looking like he’d rather be anywhere but there, next to his rambling team owner as he tried to make the case for why any of this makes sense. I remember having seen that Ballard look before: It was the summer of 2019, the night Andrew Luck announced his retirement.
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Good times.
In the middle, you had the owner, referencing sausage-making, nuclear science, rockets to Mars, the CIA, comparing Ballard to Michael Jordan and Jeff Saturday to Don Shula, Tony Dungy and Bruce Arians, taking some shots at the assembled media while generally spending the rest of the evening saying, in essence, “I’ve been doing this a long time. I don’t make bad decisions because I’m smarter than you.”
And on the right, there was poor Jeff Saturday, who must have sat there thinking, “What in the hell have I gotten myself into?” Let’s say this now: Saturday was the star of an otherwise embarrassing press conference, anticipating and addressing all the questions with erudition and enthusiasm. If you can’t root for Saturday, one of the all-time great Colts and leaders (he was on the NFLPA’s executive committee for years), then something is deeply wrong.
So it’s a pity that he was overshadowed — overwhelmed, really — by the performative nonsense being peddled by Irsay and, to a lesser extent, a defiant Ballard.
In that spirit, I went through the tape and pulled out some of the more interesting portions of the presser and offered up some commentary. OK, lots of commentary.
Away we go.
Irsay: “Look, we’re the fourth-winningest franchise in the league since 2000. That means in the upper quartile of winners, we’re in the top quartile of that upper quartile. That’s rare air. We’ve earned being there, and what we’ve accomplished speaks for itself.”
Let’s get that banner ready for the Lucas Oil rafters.
#NewProfilePic pic.twitter.com/ciC1OR8mOs
— Enjoyer of Sports (@AM_Colts) November 8, 2022
Sure, the Colts were the league’s best regular-season team in the 2000’s, but what have you done for me lately? Since Ballard arrived in 2017, they haven’t beaten AFC South teams with any regularity; they haven’t won an AFC South title and they’ve won one playoff game. Little wonder Irsay said Al Davis was his mentor; nobody lived in the past like Davis.
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And wait a second. Doesn’t the top quartile of the upper quartile mean the second-winningest team in the league? Whatever. The man was on a roll, and we’re moving on.
Irsay: “If anyone wants to kind of diminish anything that coach (Reich) did, you’d be wrong, because your opinion really doesn’t matter because what matters is the facts.”
Fact: Reich was 40-33-1 with five different starting quarterbacks in five years.
As far as diminishing Reich, well, THE MEDIA DIDN’T FIRE HIM; YOU DID! Was that loud enough for everybody in the back to hear?
Irsay: “Yes, there’s a maturation curve. (Don) Shula was 32 years old. He had three nondescript years with the Lions before he took over the reins in 1963. No, the game is not different. We don’t build rockets to go to Mars. We’re not nuclear scientists. That is none of our jobs here. It’s very simple jobs that we do here.”
So now we’re comparing Saturday to Shula? Have we officially jumped the shark? And just for accuracy’s sake, Shula was a defensive backfield coach for the Lions, who had winning records during his time there — not a head coach.
He made the same bizarre leap of faith again here, saying “The last interim coach I hired became a Super Bowl winning head coach: Bruce Arians.”
All due respect to Saturday, but I know Arians, and Saturday is no Bruce Arians. When he was hired to fill in for the ailing Chuck Pagano in 2012, it was a complete no-brainer; he was already on the staff and had more than three decades’ worth of experience as a top-level assistant and Super-Bowl winning offensive coordinator. Saturday coached a high school in Georgia. For three years. Went 20-16.
Irsay: “Now, I am glad that he (Saturday) doesn’t have any NFL experience. I’m glad he hasn’t learned the fear that’s in this league because it’s tough for all of our coaches. They’re afraid. They go to analytics, and it gets difficult. I mean, he doesn’t have all that. He doesn’t have that fear…”
This was a pretty clear shot across Reich’s bow, which was interesting just moments after Irsay said not to diminish his former head coach. Is he saying Reich coached with fear? Sure sounds that way. By the way, modern analytics tend to encourage aggression and away from fearful conservatism. But let’s not let facts get in the way here. If I’m on the Colts analytics staff — George Li and John Park — I’m sending out resumes, like, today.
Irsay (on whether he believed Ballard would return next season): “Of course, yes I do. There’s no question about that. Honestly, it’s not really even in the consciousness of my mind about that sort of thing.”
Anyone believe that? Understand, one week ago, Irsay reached out to a pair of national NFL reporters to proclaim that Reich was “safe.” Clearly, he was not. At all.
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And there was more on Ballard, who sat there looking like he’d rather be undergoing a prostate exam.
“You guys can try to diminish him all you want, but that’s just your words,” Irsay said. “They have no substance to it, because there is no truth in it. … No one is perfect in this league. You know how many shots Michael Jordan missed? You know how many games Michael Jordan has lost? …”
Ballard’s record as the Colts general manager is 44-45-1.
Michael Jordan was in the top quartile of the upper quartile. Or something like that.
Ballard on why the Colts have struggled: “… I think you all know, as you’ve all been kicking the s— out of me for years for not drafting wideouts and all of a sudden, I look up and we’re underperforming on the offensive line right now …”
Woah, woah, woah. So the offensive line, which earns the highest percentage of the cap of any O-line in the league, is horrible because we bullied him into drafting a wideout (Alec Pierce)? Are we really that powerful? Who paid Quenton Nelson? Who paid Ryan Kelly? Who paid Braden Smith? Who convinced you a player you acquired for a seventh-round pick (Matt Pryor) was a capable starter at left tackle? And didn’t Ballard select left tackle Bernhard Raimann with his second pick in the third round?
Make it make sense.
Irsay on the optics of bypassing Black assistants in order to tab Saturday: “There is no problem or perceptions, except some of you guys make a problem of perception, but you need hits so you’ve got to do it. I understand. I’d do the same thing. I was a broadcast journalism major too …. I don’t know, are you guys ever held accountable? Does your editor bring you in and say, ‘Well, you wrote that stuff. It was all wrong. You’re fired.’ We get held accountable, that’s for sure.”
Two things:
First, Irsay doesn’t need to defend his record of hiring Black head coaches. He hired Tony Dungy. He hired Jim Caldwell. He’s had numerous Black coordinators. And the fact is, the Rooney Rule does not apply for interim head coaches. I fully expect Irsay will abide by the Rooney Rule at season’s end when he’s deciding whether to retain Saturday and move on with someone else. But that doesn’t mean the question isn’t warranted given the distressing lack of diversity among NFL coaching ranks.
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Second, yes, the media are held accountable — by our bosses, by the reading public, by social media. Do we make mistakes? Of course we do. Do the Colts make mistakes? They’re 3-5-1 and heading into the abyss.
I think the answer is clear.
Meanwhile, Saturday sat there and tried to make the best of this dumpster fire. He spoke candidly, acknowledged the shock of this hire, did the best he could under adverse circumstances.
Welcome to the Colts 2022, Jeff.
Now you know how the sausage is made these days in Indy.
(Photo: Darron Cummings / Associated Press)
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