Jeff Saturday Compares Philip Rivers's Return to His Own Doomed Colts Coaching Tenure

Saturday had an ill-fated stint as Indianapolis’s interim coach in 2022.

Jeff Saturday has a brief tenure as Colts interim coach in 2022. / Jenna Watson/IndyStar / USA TODAY NETWORK

Jeff Saturday knows something about stepping into a job from off the couch.

When the Colts, for whom Saturday played center from 1999 to 2011, fired Frank Reich in 2022, owner Jim Irsay did not tab an existing member of the coaching staff to lead the franchise in the back half of the season. He didn’t choose someone with a lick of NFL coaching experience either, instead installing Saturday in the job. Saturday was an ESPN analyst at the time, and the extent of his coaching experience came in three seasons at the high school level in Georgia. He went just 1–7 leading the franchise and returned to media at the end of the season.

The situation with Rivers is not quite the same, of course. He was an eight-time Pro Bowler during his time with the Chargers and spent one year as the starter in Indianapolis in 2020 before retiring. Still, coming back to the NFL after nearly five full seasons away is pretty wild, and Saturday sees parallels between that situation and his own ill-fated coaching tenure in ‘22, he told Rich Eisen on Tuesday.

“... Never thrown to any of their receivers. I equate this to me coaching, right? I walked in, I didn’t know a soul. He’s going to walk in and not know a soul. It’s not that these receivers aren’t good ... you don’t know what his third step looks like. All the things—people think it just comes together. That’s just not how the NFL works. There’s a reason we do OTAs. There’s a reason that people say, ‘We won that game in June.’ That’s no disrespect for Philip Rivers and can he do it, absolutely.”

Could Philip Rivers really make a comeback at age 44 to save a staggering #ForTheShoe team?@SaturdayJeff weighs in on the wild possibility:#NFL pic.twitter.com/iuNopVEiLS

— Rich Eisen Show (@RichEisenShow) December 9, 2025

Saturday pretended to wretch as Eisen pointed out the murderer’s row of defenses that lay ahead for the 44-year-old Rivers and the Colts, starting with a game at the Seahawks on Sunday and finishing with the elite Texans defense on the road in Week 18.

“I don’t think people realize the violence on our field,” Saturday continued. “I think that’s the part I’m most concerned for Phil. ... I would like a guy who has actually been in the building and sat in a meeting and thrown a ball to one of our guys.”

Now, there are some players, like running back Jonathan Taylor and receiver Michael Pittman on offense, who were on the team when Rivers last played, but Saturday’s point is well taken. There will still be a significant adjustment for a quarterback who hasn’t felt the speed and pressure of an NFL defense in almost half a decade, and doesn’t have chemistry with most of the roster.

It is a desperation move for an Indianapolis team that is 8–5 and made a big trade deadline move for Sauce Gardner, only to see Gardner go down with a calf strain and quarterback Daniel Jones suffer a torn Achilles that ends his impressive bounce-back season. Now, it could be Rivers under center for the first time in nearly five years as the Colts cling to life in a competitive AFC playoff race.

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