Dan Snyder has driven us crazy for much of his 23 years as owner of the Redskins, Football Team and now Commanders.
However, might Jim Irsay have topped Snyder by what he pulled Monday?
Yes, Snyder and Bruce Allen summoned Jay Gruden to the facility at 5 a.m. to fire him. However, that team was winless after five games, Gruden had lost the team, and Bill Callahan was promoted to head coach because Callahan had head coaching experience with the Raiders in 2002-03 and Nebraska 2004-2007.
There was the time Snyder fired Norv Turner after agonizing home losses in consecutive weeks to the Eagles and Giants during the 2000 season. Snyder had spent tons of money on aging veterans and with Turner’s team only being 7-6, Snyder elevated one of Turner’s assistants, Terry Robiskie (passing game coordinator) to interim head coach for the final three weeks.
Monday, Irsay did nothing to help NFL fans form a perception of him as a reasonable and wise NFL owner. Washington in 2019 was 0-5, and the Colts are 3-5-1. Reich is respected by many around the league as both a coach and man, but Irsay fired him.
Even more, unlike Snyder, Irsay pulled a move we believe never done before in the Super Bowl era of the NFL. Irsay named Jeff Saturday as the Colts interim coach, though Saturday has no experience coaching in the NFL or in college, none.
“I don’t know how to build sausage, but I know how to build a football team.” – Jim Irsay
That is a real quote.
— Indy Source (@SourceIndiana) November 8, 2022
What would possess an owner to give over his team to a former player (in the middle of a season no less), bypassing all of the men on the current staff who certainly know what has transpired in minicamp, training camp, preseason and regular season? Why bypass the very men who have persevered through it all themselves?
Might the owner be wanting full control himself? If this is the case, wouldn’t such an owner want someone “in charge” that he feels he can control, rather than one of those men who have put in years on the staff and all of those laborious hours of meetings and practices this season?
Irsay unbelievably was quoted as saying, “We were lucky that he (Saturday) was available.” Why wouldn’t Saturday be available, Jim? Did any other NFL team have him on the payroll this season on one of their “coaching” staffs?
Does Irsay have a clue regarding staffs working together, meriting their positions, and earning the right to be heard? Does he understand staff members earn the respect of their peers by working hard throughout the offseason and regular season, laboring the voluminous hours?
What will be the morale of the Colts staff and players, suddenly having someone brought in from the outside to “call the shots” who has not been in the trenches with any of them the last four months?
Not even Daniel Snyder pulled a move like this one.
