Joe Thomas Star Calls Colts Hire ‘the Most Egregious Thing’ He’s Seen

The Colts hire of Jeff Saturday as interim coach has resulted in a ton of backlash throughout the league. Owner Jim Irsay decided to go outside the box with an inexperienced candidate with no NFL coaching experience, passing over many reasonable candidates currently on the Colts staff.

Former offensive lineman Joe Thomas, an eight-time All-Pro with the Browns, is one who was upset by Irsay’s choice. The current NFL Network analyst went on a rant explaining everything wrong with the hire.

“When you hire your drinking buddy to be a head coach of an NFL football team, it is one of the most disrespectful things I’ve ever seen in my entire life,” Thomas said on Good Morning Football. “You have got to be kidding me that this is something that Jim Irsay and Jeff Saturday, who is not blameless for accepting the job, could’ve talked and decided this was the best thing for the Indianapolis Colts.”

Thomas said that being a coach in the NFL requires an amount of commitment that the general public doesn’t understand. He told a story about how Rob Chudzinski saw his kids either once or twice a week during his one season as Cleveland’s coach. Therefore, it must be difficult for coaches who have grinded their way through the league to see someone with no coaching experience get hired.

Additionally, Thomas took offense to Jim Irsay’s argument that Saturday’s lack of experience will be beneficial to the team.

“The disrespect that NFL coaches have to feel when they saw that this hire was made is higher than almost anything that I can ever possibly remember in the NFL,” Saturday said. “It was the most egregious thing I can remember happening in the NFL, and I went 1–31 my last two years.”

Regardless of whether Saturday works out as the Colts coach, it’s clear that the hire will not be well-received for the rest of the year.

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