 our host, a producer, a reporter. She does it all for the Indianapolis Colts. Lara Overton, hi. Hey, Kay, it's great to see you again. Good to see you. Busy 24 hours for you? Very busy. 24 hours, really busy three weeks. You know, it's obviously the latest domino to fall is the decision to move on from Frank Reich and to hire former Colt Jeff Saturday into an interim head coaching role. But you go back, this really started several weeks ago with the benching of Matt Ryan, the move to Sam Ellinger to start at quarterback for foreseeably the remainder of this season, the firing of Marcus Brady as offensive coordinator, the trade of 19 pines. And then this is the latest of those that this organization now is enduring. And one of the messages from General Manager Chris Ballard last night was we're not throwing in the towel and that this is not all on Frank Reich, that this is the situation that the Colts are in right now. There are a lot of people involved that are taking the blame for it and for the situation that they're in, but they do believe that bringing Jeff in will give them some clarity moving forward on the direction to go from here. So you're saying that you weren't surprised because this has been a couple of weeks in the process. I think the world at large, I was certainly surprised to see Frank Reich part ways yesterday. What is the vibe around the team now with the departure of Reich and the introduction of Saturday? Oh, we're all surprised. I believe everyone, I think the locker room was shocked. Jeff Saturday admitted that he was shocked when he had the offer to become the interim head coach. But this is not the first time that the locker room has been caught off guard. They were stunned by the move to bench Matt Ryan earlier in the season as well. This has just been a few different decisions that have been made when you see the struggles of this offense over the last few weeks that you have Mr. Ersting looking at the product on the field, looking at the struggles that are there and trying to isolate looking, is it the quarterback? You know, is it the offensive coordinator? Okay, ultimately this is falling upon the head coach when it seemed like that those moves didn't result in any different answers or any clarity from that point moving forward. But no, there's a lot of shock and there has been a lot of shock within this locker room. And in speaking with the players, they feel that they share the blame that they didn't hold up their end of the bargain to deliver for Frank. And so they're absolving a lot of the responsibility for this and taking a lot of it upon themselves. So there's a lot of ownership for the lack of success that this team has had in terms of the guys within the locker room feeling like that there's more that they could have done and now they take a lot of responsibility moving forward. Well, the reaction outside the locker room has been incredulous by everyone, right? With the announcement of Saturday taking over with what you've learned and you're so close to the team with what you've learned in the past couple of hours even when this is announced yesterday, why might this move make sense for this organization right now? I think that we received some clarity last night from Mr. Ursay and from Chris Ballard in that the organization had for several seasons attempted to get Jeff Saturday into a role within this building going back to potentially being a position coach or having a role within the front office. So there have been moves to try to pursue Jeff Saturday in some capacity because of the knowledge that he had. You see it, I mean, we see him as an analyst and you see how valued and how respected he is and the incredible insight that he has. That's aside from the resume that he has as a player, a guy who won a championship in this building. So there is that clarity that we have heard in that this has been a move to try to get Jeff more involved. Also, Jeff was here during training camp. He spent several days up at Grand Park in Westfield with the team. I had several conversations with him. He was involved in team meetings. He was involved in practices. He has been working with the Indianapolis Colts Organization as a consultant to observe some of what has been going on, observe personnel decisions, observe game day, observe everything. So it's also something that it does seem, I think from the outside, it was a bit of an impetuous decision maybe or an emotionally driven decision because of who Jeff means to the organization. But I think when you do get a greater picture at how much he's been involved, there is clearly a perspective that he has provided to Mr. Erse and to Chris Ballard that they believe he can make an impact in this locker room and make some decisions in terms of helping the franchise. As Jeff said, this is an eight-game audition for him. I believe this is an eight-game audition for everyone because I think part of the task for him is assessing the locker room, assessing every single piece in there and deciding who is going to be a part of this moving forward. So do you consider this a long-term play with Jeff Saturday potentially? This is not an eight-game holdover band-aid. He's auditioning and you believe that that audition is valid. He is auditioning. He made that clear that this is not only an audition for him in this eight-game stint as the Indianapolis Colts head coach, but this is an audition for him for a lot of jobs across the league even if this opportunity doesn't present itself to him to come back here. You've seen how valued Jeff is in terms of his analysis in the studio. All of these different things. There have been a lot of guys who have moved between the coaching role or GM role into an analyst role and then back into front office position. It's a little different for Jeff being that his head coaching experience is just in a high school capacity. And interestingly enough, back in 2019, I went down to DeKula, Georgia, along with part of our production crew to do a story with Jeff about his coaching career, coaching at the high school level and spent time seeing him on the sidelines, seeing what he's like in a locker. It's a lot different with a high school locker room than it is a collegiate or a collegiate or professional locker room. But it is interesting that we spent time going to do that and learning about Jeff in this next chapter of his career and learning about the passion that he has for leadership, for building a winning culture. And those are a few things that Mr. Ursay noted is the type of leadership that Jeff brings in. And anyone who knows Jeff, if you've watched Jeff, he is just as authentic in person as he is if he appears on TV in all the various aspects that we have seen him. And he admitted he has the task ahead of winning over the locker room. He has to win over this coaching staff who is here as well, a coaching staff that has several former head coaches on it. So he knows the task ahead, but he feels prepared to take it on. He said he's drinking out of a fire hydrant right now. And one of those things includes deciding who's gonna call plays on Sunday. We have, yeah, the Colts don't have anyone on the staff that has called offensive plays in an NFL game. So we'll see how that goes. It's super interesting, of course, what's going on there. We'll have Darius Butler on in a few minutes to break down. You know, everything you're saying, the lack, I mean, you're saying it's experience, the lack of experience and how that plays into this decision on that. But I want to, you mentioned it, you outlined it so well. We love you, Lair, for coming on, talking about it. They benched their former MVP winning quarterback for the duration of the season. They fire a, and this is like while you have a winning record, which was a little wild and shocking. And then, you know, a coach who has multiple playoff appearances bringing in a guy who has zero coaching experience. So there's rumblings that there may be, and I know this was addressed by Ballard yesterday, but there's rumblings and they're fair given what's gone on. That the Colts are maybe looking forward to their 2023 and their future and improving their draft position and finally finding a franchise quarterback to build around because it has not happened the past five years. So it's kind of understandable. Do you think there's any validity to that? I do think that you're trying to plan for the future and, Cess, what pieces you currently have in the building that are part of that future. Now, with Jeff, this is an opportunity, and I'm gonna have to get used to calling him Coach Saturday because I know I'm so well prior to coming into this role, but with Coach Saturday, he's trying to win as many of these eight games as he has. This is his audition that he has. And then he's also assessing what pieces are here that you can build upon. And then also potentially what pieces you have that have value in terms of trying to move up in the draft. If you are going to position yourself for a franchise quarterback to draft a young quarterback who you see being the future of the franchise, I believe currently, if the season were to end today, the Colts are in not a great position. I believe they would be drafting 14 if I'm correct right now. So Chris Ballard said, we're not throwing in the towel. This is not a tank situation where the Colts are just gonna try to get themselves in those top three picks. Jeff is gonna do everything to try to put this team in position to be successful because you're too good. Look at the way this defense is playing. Look at Grover Stewart, look at Bobby O'Karaque. Look at DeForest Buckner. So many of the guys on this team who are not in a position where they, Stephon Gilmore doesn't wanna waste a season. Yeah, that's true, there's talent. There is a lot of talent. There are a lot of good pieces that you have that you cannot waste right now. So I think what this is, it's an assessment of the job that Jeff can do. It's an assessment of who you have currently in the building that can be a part of moving you forward. And then it's assessment of who are the pieces that you can potentially move around that put yourself in position to draft the quarterback that you think you're going to have to likely move up and get to depending on what happens. Here's what I've learned and you're incredible. I love, you're so in that team. It's amazing, this is a team that is not mailing in but also thinking about their future. They believe in Jeff Saturday as a leader. We don't know what he's gonna be as a head coach. We can't say that, he doesn't have any experience. So we're looking for him to assess what's going on there. I also learned everyone is on notice. It seems like everyone needs to perform at their best. And the most important thing I learned from this is the player perspective. This was of course surprising, of course shocking, of course hurtful but they're putting it on them. They're taking ownership of some of the blame, some of the responsibility and that might be a jolt in that locker room that sets this team on a different course maybe for this season but certainly of course for their future. Lera Overton bringing it on A, what does this say? A Tuesday morning. Looking ahead to weekend. What is it? What day is it? You gotta take a nap my love because it is that there's a lot going on there. We appreciate you breaking it all down as only you can. Lera Overton who does it all with the Indianapolis Colts.