"I Thought It Was A Joke!" - Joe Thomas Goes OFF On The Colts For Hiring Jeff Saturday As Their Interim Coach
I'm actually a touch surprised that Joe Thomas went this hard at another retired, decorated offensive lineman like Jeff Saturday. Don't those dudes try to prop each other up whenever possible? Isn't there some sort of unspoken brotherhood between accomplished men in the trenches? No love lost here!
While he does bash the Indianapolis Colts as an organization for taking Saturday on and says "I thought it was a joke!" when he first heard of the news while dining in France, he even blames Saturday for accepting the job in the first place, suggesting he should've known better!
When you think about how Saturday's non-playing football experience is limited to high school coaching and some sort of ambiguous consulting gig for the Colts, it's easy to see why Thomas is so worked up. He saw many coaches (and quarterbacks LOL) come and go during his career with the Cleveland Browns, so he saw any number of approaches and how hard guys were grinding to try to turn around that toxic franchise.
Thomas described the life of one of his many former Cleveland Browns head coaches, Rob Chudzinski. Unfortunately for Coach Chud, he had only one year for his big shot, but he did everything possible to make it work. Thomas explained how Chudzinski saw his kids once a week during road games and twice a week when the Browns played at home. Otherwise he was at the office or on the field coaching the entire rest of the time.
"That's not something that you can just show up for! […] When you're a coach in the NFL, you do not have a life outside of football. Why do you think coaches never retire? What are they gonna do? They haven't developed any other parts of their life!"
Anyway the rant is about three minutes long and fully worth listening to once. The other big point Thomas drives home is how offensive and disrespectful Saturday's hiring is to others who've worked their entire lives and had that monomaniacal dedication to football on the coaching side to get one of the 32 top gigs in the profession.
Several former NFLers are head coaches now and plenty have preceded them, yet generally speaking, they all had to work their way up the ladder for several years before getting their shot. Saturday's 14 years as a player aren't entirely negligible. It's just that his lack of coaching experience makes even his interim hiring pretty unprecedented and baffling.
If Indianapolis has any modicum of success under Saturday, I'll be shocked and extremely intrigued at the same time. His test run for the remainder of the season could have huge implications for ex-NFL QB Josh McCown, too. His name has popped up as a head coaching candidate for the Houston Texans each of the past two offseasons despite a similarly thin coaching resume.
But even in McCown's case, (unpopular take) I see it more. He was a journeyman backup who basically was a glorified coach, played in every imaginable offensive system under the sun and had examples of all kinds of different organizational cultures to learn from. Plus, he had to be on the ball more than anyone about everything scheme-wise since he played the quarterback position.
Not to get too sidetracked. Joe Thomas seems pretty spot-on, if a little harsh! Appreciate him for keeping it real.