The Colts have released an official statement on their website after Josh McDaniels decided to reject their offer in favor of staying in New England.
According to NFL rules, teams must wait until a coaching candidate’s season is officially over to hire them to a different job. In their statement, the Colts said they had agreed to terms with Josh McDaniels to become their next head coach, but he decided to stay with the Patriots after owner Robert Kraft reportedly sweetened his contract.
This was the absolute worst-case scenario for Chris Ballard’s first head coaching search as an NFL general manager, and the Colts said they were “surprised and disappointed” by Josh McDaniels’ decision. I’m sure the front office had much worse words regarding McDaniels’ decision behind closed doors.
Official statement on our head coach search: https://t.co/4uCQRila7w pic.twitter.com/WRFa7VKSpe
— Indianapolis Colts (@Colts) February 7, 2018
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The Colts’ statement also said that they will resume their head coaching search “immediately”, and they have reportedly already scheduled three head coaching interviews within the next 24-48 hours.
Indianapolis now goes from landing one of the hottest candidates on the NFL coaching carousel this offseason to being left out in the cold as the last team with an opening at head coach.
I’ve identified the top five candidates for the head coaching search moving forward, and hopefully some of them will be coming to Indianapolis for an interview in the coming days.
The Colts are also in a tough spot as a few assistant coaches have already signed contracts to join the staff next season. This whole situation is a complete mess, but the organization must recover quickly and find a quality candidate to lead them in 2018.
Next: 5 Potential Targets if the Colts Trade Down in the NFL Draft