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Jeff Saturday was at the epicenter of criticism heading into Week 10 when he accepted the interim head role with the Indianapolis Colts. He arrived on the job with no coaching experience whatsoever at the NFL or college level.
To some, that sounds a little like a particularly character on a popular comedy-drama series from Apple. At least that’s what came to mind for Saturday’s former high school players.
The lone coaching experience Saturday had came at the high school level from Hebron Christian Academy in Georgia. He coached at Hebron Christian for three seasons from 2017-19.
In the days after the Colts named Saturday interim head coach, Saturday reportedly heard from some of his former Hebron players, who teased him with memes from Ted Lasso.
Saturday vs. Lasso
Saturday and Lasso are just close enough that a comparison is pretty hilarious. But it’s not quite apples and oranges.
Although Saturday doesn’t have NFL coaching experience, he’s a proven leader having played in the league for 14 years. He obviously knows football and has kept up with the game through his analyst work at ESPN.
In the show Ted Lasso, Lasso is a college football coach but hired to coach a fictional English Premier League soccer team. He receives the job despite having no experience coaching soccer, and it’s revealed at the end of the first episode that the team’s owner hired Lasso with the hope that he will fail.
Obviously, that’s not the case with Colts owner Jim Irsay. As crazy as people found the Saturday hire, Irsay made the team’s coaching change with the belief that it will help in the short and long-term.
Still, the Lasso memes to Saturday are quite funny, especially when considering it’s Saturday’s former players who devised the teasing idea.
Saturday Declines to Comment on Fritz Pollard Alliance Inquiry
It wasn’t all fun and games for Saturday on November 18. Obviously, he’s preparing to face the 8-1 Philadelphia Eagles in Week 11, but in a potential off-the-field distraction, the Fritz Pollard Alliance have opened an investigation into the Colts hiring the former NFL center.
“In light of the recent interim head coaching hire in Indianapolis, the FPA has initiated an inquiry with the NFL into whether this hiring process conformed with NFL Hiring Guidelines for naming an interim Head Coach,” the Fritz Pollard Alliance said in a statement.
The debate that’s occurred between insiders since Saturday was hired is whether or not the Colts were supposed to follow the Rooney Rule before hiring an interim head coach. The Rooney Rule requires NFL teams to interview minority candidates for head coaching openings in an effort to create opportunities for everyone.
It’s pretty clear that with the Saturday hire, he was the only candidate considered. However, ProFootballTalk’s Mike Florio reported the Rooney Rule does not apply to interim head coaches hired during the season.
“The Rooney Rule is the only universal hiring policy used by the NFL to promote fairness and diversity,” the Fritz Pollard Alliance said in a statement on November 8. “However, [Monday’s] news in Indianapolis illuminated a gap in the league’s stated objective. If the spirit of the rule is to expand opportunities, we believe that it must be consistently applied, even in the hiring of interim positions.”
Saturday declined to comment on the latest statement from the Fritz Pollard Alliance when speaking to the media on November 18.
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