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Report: Colts Will Decide On Head Coach Finalists This Week

The Indianapolis Colts will reportedly chop down their robust list of head coaching candidates to a group of finalists this week.

Jake Arthur

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In the pursuit of due diligence, the Indianapolis Colts have had an abnormally large search for their next head coach, interviewing 12 candidates while a 13th is still to be determined.

The Colts want this to be a thorough search and as such are casting a wide net so that they find the right man to lead their franchise for the foreseeable future.

With the first wave of interviews down, NFL Network's Tom Pelissero reported that Colts general manager Chris Ballard and the team next will whittle the group down to a collection of finalists.

"This entire first round of interviews has been virtual, and I'm told owner Jim Irsay has not been in any of those interviews," Pelissero said. "The plan is, in the next couple of days, they'll pare down that list of 13 and set up a second round of interviews later this week in person, with Irsay involved."

A chief concern among Colts fans regarding the coaching search is that, despite such a wide net of qualified candidates, Saturday might be promoted to the full-time head coach, or at least be among the finalists due to Irsay's admiration for the former Pro Bowl center.

"Jeff Saturday remains a candidate for this position," Pelissero continued. "Irsay believes in him and wants him to have a chance despite his 1-7 record as the interim head coach. However, I'm told Irsay will be open-minded in this process.

Saturday, of course, stepped into a tough situation following the firing of former head coach Frank Reich, but by nearly all accounts, the team's performance got even worse. For example, the Colts were outscored by 87 points in his tenure and were on the business end of historic losses to the Dallas Cowboys and Minnesota Vikings. Dallas scored a franchise-record 33 unanswered points in the fourth quarter en route to a 54-19 triumph, and Minnesota erased a 33-point deficit to complete the biggest comeback in NFL history.

Regardless of who has been interviewed to this point, Ballard knows to stay open throughout the entire process.

“So, I’m going to tell you what I have learned. One – don’t start with an end in mind. It’s big. A lot of times what happens is you get a vision of what you want before – you’ve made your mind up and then you might ignore somebody that’s really freaking good right in front of your face," Ballard told reporters at his end-of-season press conference.

"We’ve got a very detailed process put together on the traits and attributes we’re looking for in the head coach," Ballard continued. "Don’t care which side of the ball. And then to be patient and take your time and make sure we have a thorough interview with everybody. Consistent, thorough – I don’t care if it takes until mid-February to hire the head coach. It’s about getting it right.”

Whenever the Colts make their final decision and the search concludes, one thing is certain; they have an impressive group of candidates to choose from. One such candidate, however, may have to wait or be taken out of consideration altogether, as San Francisco 49ers defensive coordinator DeMeco Ryans canceled Sunday's interview to focus on the team's playoff matchup against the Cowboys.

Here is the known list of interviewees so far:

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Jake Arthur
JAKE ARTHUR

Jake Arthur has covered the NFL and the Indianapolis Colts for a decade. He is a member of the Professional Football Writers of America (PFWA) and FantasyPros' expert panel. He has also contributed to multiple NFL Draft guides.

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