Saturday's Colts on the Move in Latest NFL Power Rankings
It was a whirlwind week for Jeff Saturday and the Indianapolis Colts, culminating with a 25-20 win over Josh McDaniels and the Las Vegas Raiders.
The Colts had 415 yards of offense in play-caller Parks Frazier's debut, and it was almost a perfect balance: 208-yards passing and 207-yards rushing (a season high).
ESPN was impressed with the Colts showing against the struggling Raiders and moved them up six spots from No. 27 to No. 21 in their latest NFL Power Rankings.
This week's theme from ESPN was to re-visit their preseason hotseat predictions, and it was former head coach Frank Reich for the Colts who entered the season on the hotseat.
Unfortunately for Reich, we nailed this one. He was fired in the midst of his fifth season after a 26-3 loss to the Patriots. Reich was beset by a revolving door of quarterbacks during his tenure, leading to slow starts to seasons and inconsistent results. He is still highly regarded and will want to coach again. We'll see what the marketplace thinks of him in the coming months. As for his replacement, Jeff Saturday, he's embarking on an endeavor unprecedented in the modern era -- becoming a head coach without any college or pro experience. He'll either revolutionize NFL hiring or be a funny footnote in history. -- Stephen Holder, ESPN
The Raiders are 2-7, and the Josh McDaniels watch has begun. It may be a little premature to come to any sweeping conclusions about the Colts' performance on Sunday, but the early returns from Saturday were good.
Saturday admitted as much on Monday at his media availability.
"Sustainability, we talked about it last night," said Saturday on the topic of continuing the positive momentum. "We’ve still got a lot of games left and we have processes in place that we know we have to achieve and we have to execute too."
"So, we talked about that last night on the plane ride home. Making sure roles were clarified, anything that had to be moved around or adjusted a little bit."
"We’ve got another opportunity this week and we’re excited about it."
Next up for the Colts are the formerly-unbeaten Philadelphia Eagles. The Eagles dropped to 8-1 on Sunday night with a 32-21 loss to the Washington Commanders.
The Colts will be home against the Eagles, but they'll get Philadelphia's best shot coming off of a loss. Should Saturday and the Colts find a way to knock off the birds from Philly and even their record at 5-5-1, sustainability, playoff talk, and power rankings will all continue to look positive.
