Jeff Saturday coaches his first game as the Indianapolis Colts' interim head coach against the Las Vegas Raiders on Sunday. It's also his first game, period. Colts owner Jim Irsay appointed Saturday on Monday to replace Frank Reich despite -- or, in his words, because -- Saturday has zero coaching experience at the NFL or college levels.
Saturday's lack of experience was a positive to Irsay, but in the mind of CBS panelist Bill Cowher, it's "a disgrace to the coaching profession."
What really grinds Cowher's gears here is, on top of passing over qualified interim candidates within the building, Saturday passed on an opportunity to join the full-time staff in order to work remotely part-time while also working for ESPN, and then waltzes in as the boss of the guys he declined to work alongside earlier.
"What about the assistants on the staff right now?" Cowher asked. "Don't they deserve an opportunity?"
"For an owner to hire a coach who's never been an assistant at the college level or the pro level, it's a disgrace to the coaching profession. Regardless of how this thing plays out, what happened in Indianapolis is a travesty."
"It's a disgrace to the coaching profession."@CowherCBS's emotional reaction to the Colts hiring Jeff Saturday. pic.twitter.com/B8QCSJZpPW
— NFL on CBS 🏈 (@NFLonCBS) November 13, 2022
An undrafted free agent out of NC State, Cowher played six seasons in the NFL before joining the coaching profession as the Cleveland Browns' special teams coach in 1985. He moved to defensive backs coach in 1987, then became the Kansas City Chiefs defensive coordinator in 1989. That led him to Pittsburgh, where he won 161 games, two AFC championships and Super Bowl XL as the Steelers' head coach from 1992-06.
He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2021.