After the dismissal of Frank Reich, the Indianapolis Colts hire Jeff Saturday, a head coach who has no experience at the professional level. But the players are worried for a different reason.

Munich/Indianapolis – Whether this tweet will fall on his feet next weekend? In late October, then “ESPN” analyst and ex-NFL pro Jeff Saturday tweeted, “Raiders look terrible.”

Less than two weeks later, the 47-year-old is getting closer to the “looking terrible” franchise than he could have guessed at the time of his tweet.

On Monday, Saturday was named – surprisingly to fans and pundits alike – the new head coach of the Indianapolis Colts. After countless bankruptcies and a more than disappointing season so far, the previous head coach Frank Reich had previously been fired.

The signing of Saturday is more than just an extraordinary event in the best football league in the world. Because if there’s one thing the 47-year-old doesn’t possess, it’s experience coaching a professional team.

Saturday has no coaching experience

The most coaching experience he has is his years coaching at Hebron Christian Academy – a high school in the US state of Georgia.

Work as an NFL assistant coach or at least a college coach? Not a chance! The same goes for his coaching staff, by the way.

And yet Saturday will be on the sidelines as head coach of the visiting team at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas on Sunday. As the first coach without professional experience since Van Brocklin with the Minnesota Vikings in 1961. For himself, a most unexpected decision.

“Why am I a candidate for this job again?” he asked Colts-Owner Jim Irsay at the press conference during his introduction. And it went further: “If I say I was shocked, that would be an understatement,” he explained of the moment when he was asked by the team owner if he wanted to serve as interim head coach for the rest of the season.

But while most outsiders are at least once puzzled by the decision of Colts officials, the franchise presents its new head coach as a candidate of choice.

New coach won Super Bowl with Colts

So general manager Chris Ballard said they had tried twice before to get Saturday on the team. So now it has worked. He is certainly assured of Owner Irsay’s support in his mission. “He is the best man for the job, there is no doubt about that,” the owner said confidently. And further: “We are not building rockets here to fly to Mars. What we do here is actually very simple.”

Irsay interprets the complete lack of NFL experience as extremely positive. “I’m so glad he doesn’t have NFL experience yet. He doesn’t have that fear. We were very fortunate that he was available. He has a lot of experience. He knows this game inside and out.”

And most importantly, he’s not one thing: jaded by countless statistics and analysis that the NFL has come to focus on.

Still, the 47-year-old’s tenure is no accident. Saturday played centre for the Colts for 13 years, won the Super Bowl with the team and was selected to the Pro Bowl five times. In addition, he was a consultant for several years, according to the team.

Indianapolis Colts: Saturday brimming with confidence

By the way, the rookie coach himself is not lacking in self-confidence either, despite his inexperience. Thus, he explained that his inexperience has helped him several times in his career.

“That’s the great thing about my career,” said Saturday, who wasn’t selected in the draft as a player but then took off as a free agent. “I’m here. Nobody expects anything. Hopefully it goes extremely well. I still don’t know if I’m going to be anything spectacular, though.”

All is not yet planned out for Saturday less than a week before his coaching debut. Instead, he told media representatives of another surprising decision. The 30-year-old Parks Frazier, a passing game specialist and assistant quarterbacks coach in his own right, is to become his offensive play-caller. Second, the rookie coach has settled on Sam Ehlinger as his starting quarterback.

Jeff Saturday: Proximity to Colts owner Irsay as criticism

By the way, the Colts pros are approaching their new head coach with mixed feelings, according to US media. But it is apparently not his inexperience that the athletes are afraid of. Rather, Saturday has been a close confidant of owner Irsay for years.

Somewhere understandable that concerns are mounting among many players that the owner has gained eyes and ears in the locker room by installing the new coach.

Owner Irsay himself was mostly confident of victory at the press conference. “Are you going to bet against this guy?” he shouted in the direction of the journalists. “Put your money down. I’d like to see that because I know what he’s got.”

Whether Saturday is actually any good will be revealed in Week 10, when he stands on the sidelines in his first NFL game as head coach.