I have no regrets.
Then came the day after. And to his credit
to his credit willing to be transparent
willing to acknowledge, he has
applied further, thought to the situation, and he has decided
that maybe maybe he could have done a better job. Here is from
yesterday.
Looking back,
obviously, there's always things everybody wants to do
a plays, they want back. I
wish I had that third down back in all honesty. Wish I had to
use a timeout.
Just looking at it on film looked at it last night again.
Looked at it this morning again and and
from a Time perspective, I felt I felt good but the
you could tell we were in disarray,
I just didn't have a great feel
and,
you know, Parks made a great call. I still like to call
right away. Way, you know, I told him to have one ready and
as soon as he went down, he had to call him play. So
his his was on but then we had the formation and Personnel. We
had guys run across and
again, I just, you know, looking back, it's a learning
experience. I didn't I didn't
I didn't meet my expectations again. I'll hold the guys
accountable. I'm accountable for that. Just wish I would
have
that one's the one that's going to stick with me. So use it as
a learning experience. Hopefully get better at it. But
frustrated with myself on that All my coaches,
I mean whether it be
Tony, whether it's Jim Caldwell.
Those guys were always
very transparent with the team and I felt like they were very
honest with everybody, whether it's public or not and
I believe in that. I mean, there's no listen you know,
they're everybody's going to have opinion one way or
the other either way.
And I'm not concerned with what goes on outside. But inside
I want to make sure everybody feels
you know that you own whatever your In is and everybody has
a role and you know at that moment in that role,
you know, I just feel like I should have done something
different
Mi the keyword there and he used it twice experience. Now,
he
proceeded experience with learning experience, but
when you have experience, that's the value of
experience.
You've been there, you've done that. You've been there, you've
done that, you've learned sometimes, You learn as
a member of a coaching staff while the head coach goes
through it and you go. Hmm.
I'm glad I learned the lesson now
because that'll make me better prepared
for the day when
I'm the one that has to make those decisions
in the moment in real time. One thing to watch it on film
the next day, or watch it on TV live. When you are in
the middle of it, it's a different feeling altogether. It's so
much easier to be the one at home saying,
like, Peyton Manning week one with the Broncos timeout,
timeout, timeout, right? When you're the one on the sideline,
you know what to do? You feel paralyzed? Used by it. So you
have to do it. You have to get the experience.
The Learning Experience
comes from experience,
and this was the whole beef
that so many had with it. You're plucking a guy that's
got no experience in your put him in charge of one of 32 NFL
franchises. That's why people were upset about it. So I think
it's Jeff Saturday,
it's a
frustration with the fact that we're expecting a guy with no
experience to act like guy who has experience he just doesn't
and Monday. Is a great example of it. Well the thing that
I just kept thinking about even as that was going on on Monday
night was Jim irsay
at the introductory press conference for Coach Saturday
talking about. I'm glad he doesn't have experience because
he doesn't have the fear that coaches have analytics and
whatever other weird things that Jim irsay was talking
about at that point. But this is like, you were just saying,
what happens when you do
Don't have experienced. This is where you don't have
the wherewithal to say, okay, I've been in a situation like this
before as another member of the coaching staff, right? I've
been in this situation as somebody who has looked at
the decision making process and
then we'll do something else.
The whole thing of that sequence was just weird because
you have three timeouts. So he's talking about the third
down but I'm
Again also about second down because Matt Ryan got sacked,
right. He took a sack fumble on first down so it ends up being
second in 17 and while that worked out okay, and you can
see it right there that he goes and he makes it third and one
third
and to whatever it was
now because he was able to run.
But here you can see, they are in disarray,
they don't necessarily know what they're doing.
They're trying to get to the liner, trying to get the right
play call. You should call timeout, in my opinion. After
First down because he got sex. So get your playwright, you
know, I mean, when Matt Ryan is running for that many yards,
your plays not right in the first place. Look at that,
that's not something that should be happening. You don't
plan on Matt, Ryan scrambling,
right? So especially then if you're not going to call
timeout, they're fine. But if you're going to call timeout,
if you're not going to call timeout before third down, it's
like, well what are you doing?
You need to be able to have everything. Right? You know.
And in Credit to Jeff Saturday, you said no I told Parks Fraser
have a play ready.
Yeah and all of that
but in that's fine,
you know, Frasier is in, you know one of his first few weeks
as a play caller
is just give yourself the time to do. Every that's what
the timeout sir for and I think in those situations you want to
make sure that you have the right play and I don't know
that the Colts gave themselves enough time to actually have
the right play on
The word that Saturday used was disarray folks who were
watching the show yesterday or who have listened to
the podcast in the interim. We'll remember possibly that the word
Chris used was disheveled,
another d word but the same idea,
there was a look, there was a vibe, there was something going
on and
because the initial defense by Saturday included saying there
was no reason to take a timeout and I'm paraphrasing here
because
I already had my play. A call for third down and I wasn't
changing it. Okay. Fine.
But the problem is, when you rush to the line
and everybody is kind of like looking around like Russell
Wilson in that moment Week 1 against the Seahawks when, you
know, everyone's like, what are we doing? What are we doing? Oh
yeah, we're going to kick a 68 yard field goal or
whatever it was the
the reality is Alex, Highsmith of the Steelers.
Diagnosed what was coming and you saw him make the play. He
explained after the game the formation
where the tight end was the way the tight end was standing film
study.
I knew this was going to be a run
and you see him go right through? It's not even hot
knife through butter. It's hot knife through. Are he goes
right through and makes the tackle. That's what happens
when
you allow yourself to be disheveled and or in disarray
and or any other potential. Sending him starting with d.
So yeah. That's the problem. And
and, and now now Jeff Saturday
has experience and the next time around
oh he'll have fear miles. He'll have some of that fear that Jim
irsay was talking about because he'll be fearful that
Us in the media. May criticize me except the folks at ESPN,
but us
it all the other outlets, well may criticize him if he screws
up. Up,
what? They'd better themselves in knots to not criticize him?
They were dumping on Matt Ryan for not calling the timeout.
They went right to it and they didn't have
to the better argument as Chris Simms made yesterday was
you don't know that not calling the timeout screwed things up,
they didn't run out of time. They ran out of downs. That was
the issue. They ran out of downs and the bigger issue with
that third down wasn't that they didn't take the time
out. It's that they pissed away a play.
They Tasted that snap and put themselves in fourth and three,
call the timeout.
And then you have two plays,
third down and fourth down. Here's what we're doing.
And we're going straight to the line on Force. Our, we're not
giving them time to think about anything. We know exactly what
we're doing on fourth down. We got it planned out. We got two
timeouts, left to. So we got the whole field to work with,
on fourth down, or third down,
we don't have to worry about getting out of bounds.
We got time because we have time outs so they ran out of
downs. But one of the reasons I ran out of towns
is that it uses A timeout when they should have to just take
a step back and get their act together.
Yeah, exactly. So it's all in that process where you're
saying, okay, how do I manage this game? And that's part of
why it's good that Jeff Saturday is not the offensive
play caller,
right? Because he's supposed to be
in it, you know, zeroing in on these Day, Management
situations. But that was a test and that one he failed and he
admitted, he failed it, you know, I mean, you said it to
his
That's something that he has admitted now publicly and he
didn't double down on what was obviously flawed reasoning,
right? So okay, that's great. But this is one of the things
where you, you see on the job training
and it's like, hmm,
you know? Why exactly is this happening? And it's the lack of
experience while okay? Now he has experience. So does that
really make him better?
Or is he going to be paralyzed by the fear the
Next time just like
he was paralyzed by the inexperience this time and
I don't know if it's just a criticism of it. It's it. And
I think that comes from the outside, it's also
in some ways the back of his mind. He's got to thinking
man, I have two former head coaches on my defensive staff
and they have the experience and the wherewithal of being in
these situations and probably knowing exactly what they
should do. I'm talking about John Fox and Gus Bradley. So
it's
It's so odd situation in the first place, but then when you
see something like this where the game management gets messed
up, I think that just adds another layer of complication
to the whole thing.
And you know the reality is when you going to do something
unconventional like this and hire a guy to be the interim
head coach who has twice before not accepted
an offer, to become the offensive line coach and be
part of the staff who hasn't been coaching other than at
the high school level at any point during
the decade since his playing career ended,
you set yourself up
for this type of criticism. And yeah, you accept that the bar
is going to be higher for you. Sure, plenty of other coaches.
Age the clock. But when you take a guy who has no
experience and you put him in that Spotlight, it's more
significant and conspicuous
when he does. But the bottom line is
the next time they find themselves in this situation,
they will approach it differently.
The reality is they lost the game in there, now for seven
and one and it's going to be harder for them to get to
the postseason. And you know a couple of weeks ago they were
looking like they were in pretty good shape. They had
the Eagles on the ropes.
It just shows you how close these games are no matter who
the head coach is the Level is close enough that everyone has
a chance and that's why it's critical
to make good decisions.
That's why it's important
to not shoot yourself in the foot. That's why
you have to make the advantage and also not, what do we hear
the cliche?
It's more about, not losing the game, it's not about winning
game. Tom Brady was talking about that, not long ago.
It's you you protect against losing,
you try not to do something that loses the game
and that in and of itself helps you win.
In the game. So that's what we saw on Monday night and we'll
see if the Colts can
get a better outcome Primetime
Sunday night football,
against the Dallas Cowboys, that game was not flexed out,
even though some thought it would be, I don't know why
they're not. It could be the Cowboys against
Northwestern. Is that a bad college program right now?
I don't know. Yes, West, Virginia University. Okay. So, okay,
pick up bad to average college football team
and put them against the Dallas Cowboys in prime time and it
ain't getting flexed out because it's the Cowboys. It's
America's