Colts owner Jim Irsay sent shock waves through the NFL this week when he decided that not any given Saturday deserved to be plucked out of an ESPN studio to coach an NFL team for the first time on any given Sunday.
But maybe this Jeff Saturday could?
The NFL head-coaching experiment has been littered with hot-shot coaches who were never coordinators … but this? The first man to coach an NFL game without college or pro coaching experience since Norm Van Brocklin for the 1961 expansion Vikings?
NBC’s Tony Dungy coached Saturday, won a Super Bowl for the Colts with Saturday as the center for Peyton Manning. Serby Says asked Dungy what his message would be to Colts fans.
“Let’s watch these eight games and see what happens,” Dungy said. “Is he gonna be the savior that’s all of a sudden gonna turn things around? I don’t know that for a fact. But I do know this: I know that they’ll be prepared, I know that they’ll be energized, and they’ll be sound and they’ll be hungry. Is that gonna be good enough? We’ll find out.”
How can that possibly work? Is it kind of a Hail Mary?
“Well, Hail Marys have worked before,” ESPN’s Dan Orlovsky told Serby Says. “He’s gotta go into that locker room and get those players to feel like, for the next 8-9 weeks, he’s with them. That he’s just not there to try something else. He’s with them. And then, that they gotta go play a certain way for him, so to speak. The big challenge for Jeff is to get those guys to understand the only way that things go better is if they buy in to what he says, that’s the only way. It doesn’t work any other way. That’s really hard to do. … If I were Jeff, I would go all in on a Baltimore Ravens style or offense with Sam Ehlinger. That’s challenging, no doubt about it.”
Saturday’s task will be complicated by the understandable perception that he is the owner’s eyes and ears.
“He’s gonna have to prove to the players and earn the players’ trust that he is with the players, and he’s not just here as a ride-along with the owner,” Orlovsky said.
Then there is the matter of longtime assistants, particularly black assistants, not only on fired coach Frank Reich’s staff, but also around the NFL who have paid their dues and are being leapfrogged by a novice.
“I’ve been a big one speaking out on opportunities for minority coaches, but I don’t begrudge any owner from deciding what they want to do, as long as they know what they want,” Dungy said. “I have a problem with guys not knowing what they want, then kind of picking a name out of air or because it’s popular or because somebody else says this is a hot guy.”
Dungy was the first African-American coach to win a title, Super Bowl XLI with the Colts on Feb. 7, 2007.
“I remember our Super Bowl year, when Pittsburgh was making a change,” he said, “and [former Steelers owner and president] Dan Rooney called me because he had interviewed Mike Tomlin. And on his staff at that time, there were about five coaches [including Bruce Arians, Dick LeBeau, Russ Grimm and Ken Whisenhunt] who were very, very experienced, very good. Dan always had a formula of what he was looking for, and he always hired young defensive coaches who were good communicators. He was looking for that 15- to 20-year career.
“He liked defensive guys because he felt like that was the Pittsburgh community mentality in that cold weather and hard-nosed football went hand in hand. Did Mike Tomlin have as much experience and as much knowledge of the Steelers as those other guys? No, but for Dan, that was the right course, and a lot of people were critical of it at the time. And a lot of people said, ‘Where did he get this guy from?’ How could you pass up the guys already on your staff?’ But he knew what he was looking for.
“Jim Irsay, I’m sure he thought about this, he knew what he was looking for. Is it unconventional? Absolutely. Will it work? Who knows?”
Colts interim coach Jeff Saturday.APIrsay turning to Saturday will signal to some assistant coaches that the old boy network sure ain’t dead yet.
“I would imagine they’re offended. I would imagine they’re frustrated,” Orlovsky said. “I would imagine they’re asking, ‘Why does he get to do it that way when we’ve had to do it a different way and kind of earned the right and climbed the ranks?’ They’re probably justified in their feelings. Probably a lot of question marks.
“But a lot of coaches also know, like just being honest, there’s a lot of coaches in the NFL that have gotten their jobs because of the people that they know as well.”
Saturday was even more than an undrafted free-agent center out of North Carolina who made himself into a five-time Pro Bowler. He was a team leader and voice of reason who, lobbying one time to run the ball in the red zone, engaged in a memorable sideline blowup with Manning.
“Not afraid to stand up to anybody, including his Hall of Fame quarterback, to get his point across,” Dungy said, “but doing it in a way that everybody can be productive, and doing it in a man-to-man, kind of friendly way.
“Is he gonna be successful in this situation? This is such a long shot, and if he does, it would be unprecedented. … But if I was gonna bet on anybody, I certainly would bet on Jeff.”
Orlovsky was a backup quarterback during Saturday’s 13th and final season with the Colts in 2011.
“Jeff demanded respect by his actions and his accomplishments,” Orlovsky said. “Then he played center for Peyton Manning. You want to talk about a demanding role, that’s as demanding a role that an offensive lineman could have. I think he’s got this really cool way of embracing conflict that is good for the team. He doesn’t shy away from asking tough questions in meetings, in film. His ability to do that without being a jerk has tremendous impact.”
Tony Dungy Getty ImagesDungy did not have a Leadership Council as Colts coach.
“I told everybody my door was always open,” Dungy said, “and there were two guys who would come in that door for the most part in seven years, and that was Peyton Manning and Jeff Saturday. Jeff was one of the guys who people would go to and say, ‘Tell Coach this,’ and he would say, ‘You know you can go in there and tell him that yourself,’ but they would send him in. Peyton and Jeff were the two guys that came in my office more than anybody — ‘Hey, here’s what’s going on, here’s what we need to do, we need to rest up a little more, we need to push a little harder, hey this guy had this issue.’ They we’re definitely the guys that I leaned on to get the pulse of the team.”
Dungy remembers his first glimpse of the young Saturday.
“Bill Polian [then the Colts’ GM] had told me, ‘We got two really great offensive linemen, we’ve got a lot of great skill position guys, but Jeff Saturday and Tariq Glenn are tremendous players, and they’re the anchors of the offensive line,’ ” Dungy said. “And so when he comes in, I’m thinking, ‘This is Jeff Saturday?’ He’s my height, he’s about 285, and he’s got that country twang. But as soon as we got out on the practice field, I understand why Bill said that. Once I saw him practice, I never had any more doubts.”
Because this became his Jeff Saturday scouting report:
“Tremendous work ethic. Super smart. Great understanding of the game, and a physical and mental toughness to not back down from anybody. You’re blocking 350-pound nose guards and you weigh 285, but finding a way to do it.”
Saturday coached his son Jeffrey at Hebron Christian Academy in Dacula, Ga., where he was 20-16 over three years. Now he will try to do it with the Colts in Las Vegas on Sunday on an NFL sideline.
Wide receiver Troy Walters of the Indianapolis Colts celebrates a touchdown with teammate Center Jeff Saturday in 2003.Getty Images“We talked about high school coaching a lot,” Dungy said. “It’s no different, coaching young men, try to get them to be the best they can be, developing character, building teamwork, all those things that we kind of stressed when I was there, and he had that in mind in high school, he’ll do the same thing there. Honestly, I really believe that’s what Jim Irsay was looking for, somebody who could galvanize them locker room, bring everybody back together, instill a little confidence, somebody who’s a people person and a leader. And also the fact that their offensive line is not playing great right now. They’ve got some really talented guys, they’ve got a lot of money invested in that offensive line, and if anybody’s gonna be able to help that, it’s certainly gonna be Jeff.
“So I think there were a lot of things that Jim Irsay was looking at, hoping to catch lightning in a bottle here in the next eight weeks.
“If it was me, I would stay the course and just said, ‘Let’s try to work this out, and if it doesn’t work out, let’s go do something at the end of the year,’ but Jim went the other way, and he feels Jeff is his guy.”
Dungy recalls Saturday stepping out of character with a fiery speech the night before the Colts slayed the Bill Belichick-Tom Brady dragon in the AFC Championship game following the 2006 season.
“He said, ‘Can I address the team?’ ” Dungy said. “He quoted Herb Brooks [from] the 1980 Olympic hockey team: ‘This is our time, and here’s how we’re gonna go do it.’ And said all the same things I would have said, but just in his way. It resonated with the guys. We had guys walking up and down the sideline saying, ‘It’s our time, it’s our time.’ ”
The Patriots grabbed a 21-3 lead that day, and Saturday later confided to his coach: “I thought maybe I was wrong.”
For better or for worse, it’s now Jeff Saturday’s time.
