I became a Colts fan in the summer of 2001. While playing Franchise Mode on Madden 2002, the Indianapolis Colts were the only team I couldn’t beat. I lost to them both in the regular season and in the Super Bowl, both games were blowouts.

Since the Texans were a year away from their inaugural season, I chose the Colts as my team.

Over the past 21 years, the franchise has been a model of consistency, only posting one losing season in 2011 when Peyton Manning missed the entire season and again in 2019 when Andrew Luck suddenly retired before the season.

Andrew Luck’s retirement was the turning point for the franchise. We were just coming off a season in which we made it to the second round of the playoffs and our roster was ready to contend. After going 7-9 in that 2019 season, GM Chris Ballard signed veteran QBs in three consecutive years hoping that they could elevate the roster to contender status. The Phillip Rivers signing worked as we made it to the playoffs, losing in the wild-card round. The subsequent two years didn’t pan out. The Carson Wentz experiment failed when he played arguably his worst NFL game in a 29-11 loss to the dysfunctional Jacksonville Jaguars. A game where a win secured a playoff spot.

This past offseason under owner Jim Irsay’s orders the team traded Carson Wentz to Washington, then made a subsequent trade for Falcon’s veteran Matt Ryan. The hope was Ryan could have similar success to what Phillip Rivers accomplished with the team or even better.

This season has been a disaster. Matt Ryan is having the worse statistical season of his career and has been benched for the rest of the season. It isn’t entirely his fault though. The offensive line got paid and suddenly forgot how to block anybody. Our prized running back has been hampered by injuries. And our star linebacker and anchor of our defense has missed most of the season recovering from offseason surgery.

The benching of Ryan signaled the end of our season. Our starter for the rest of the season would be 2021 6th-round draft pick, Sam Ehlinger. Jim Irsay was banking on Ehlinger’s mobility to give us better results as opposed to the stationery Matt Ryan.

But then Sunday happened.

On Sunday, we lost to the Patriots 26-3. It looked like a scrimmage game. Our offense only scored 3 points because of a New England turnover in their territory. The offense gave up 9 sacks. Our QB barely threw for 100 yards. It was the most dreadful football I ever watched. I stopped watching the game midway through the second quarter.

I woke up Monday and turned to The Get UP on ESPN. I couldn’t wait to see how Jeff Saturday was gone rip the Colts. But Jeff wasn’t there. Then I saw the breaking news graphic appear on the ticker tape.

“Breaking News: Indianapolis Colts fire Head Coach Frank Reich. Jeff Saturday hired as interim coach.”

This was the first time in my 21-year fandom that I ever questioned this team or the direction that we are headed.

Our problem has been clear since the day Andrew Luck retired we need a Franchise QB, not stop-gaps. We’ve had 7 different starting QBs since the 2019 season.

Hiring Jeff Saturday doesn’t solve that problem and creates a whole myriad of new problems. No disrespect to Jeff, he was a big-time contributor to our mid-2000s teams and inducted into our ring of honor, but that doesn’t give him the credentials to skip the process and start coaching an NFL team. (Irsay found a loophole around the Rooney rule because Saturday is the “interim” head coach.) The only coaching experience under Saturday’s belt is coaching high school 4 football years ago.

I think it was in poor taste on Jim Irsay’s part to hire Saturday. It’s a slap in the face to the other coaches in the league who watch an analyst become a head coach overnight, without having to earn his dues like the other 29 Head Coaches currently coaching. Even the two former head coaches already on staff, have to feel some type of way about not being chosen as the interim coach, and yet have to work under a guy who was an analyst as early as 6 am Monday.

As a fan, I’m torn on this situation. I like Jeff Saturday and I do want to see him have success as a coach, but at the same time, we need a Quarterback. The only way to get the Franchise Quarterback we so desperately need is to lose as many of the remaining games as we can to ensure we get a high draft pick.

Maybe, just maybe, Jim Irsay hired Saturday just to get him some coaching experience, while we tank the rest of the season. That way the former coaches on our staff don’t get the results of this season held against them. It’s probably unlikely but I just had to play Devil’s advocate.

Hopefully, at the end of the season, Chris Ballard and Jim Irsay can sit down and map out the direction of the Franchise moving forward. Next August, it’ll be 4 years since Luck’s retirement, maybe the reality check of this season will help them realize drafting a Quarterback for the long term will bring some much-needed stability to the franchise.