Colts officially make Bubba Ventrone a candidate for their head coaching vacancy

The Indianapolis Colts are interviewing special teams coordinator, and rising head coaching candidate, Bubba Ventrone for Indy’s opening.

On Wednesday, it was announced that the Indianapolis Colts are interviewing their own special teams coordinator, Raymond Bubba Ventrone. Aside from Jeff Saturday, he’s the first internal option that has been reported to be a candidate. However, that shouldn’t come as a shock because, in recent years, Ventrone has become one of the more popular rising head coaching candidates and his name was expected to pop up in interviews around the league during this coaching hiring cycle.

Ventrone’s NFL career started as a player when he signed with the New England Patriots as an undrafted free agent back in 2005. He was listed as a safety but Ventrone thrived as a special teams player. After bouncing around to four teams during his ten-year career, Ventrone retired and returned to the Patriots to make his transition into coaching. He started as the assistant special teams coach with New England from 2015 to 2017, then came to the Colts as the special teams coordinator in 2018.

Since then, Ventrone has led Indianapolis to be one of the best special teams units year after year. From the return game to blocking punts, Indy has been very discipline under Ventrone and has consistently found ways to make plays. Couple that with Bubba Ventrone becoming a national star when the Colts were featured on the in-season version of “Hard Knocks” and it makes sense why he has become one of the young coaches in the league to watch.

Could Bubba Ventrone be the next head coach of the Colts?

People have been so high on Ventrone that a lot of folks were shocked and upset that he wasn’t hired as interim head coach after Frank Reich was fired. However, everyone since learned that giving Jeff Saturday the role of interim was always the plan. It also probably benefits Ventrone that his league-wide candidacy wasn’t impacted by the disaster that was the 2022 Colts.

Could Bubba Ventrone make a good head coach for Indianapolis moving forward? There’s a good chance he can for a couple of reasons. For starters, him being an internal option provides some continuity for the players and coaches on the roster. Additionally, Ventrone is a special teams coordinator, which means he interacts with the entire team. He probably has a good relationship with the majority of the players as well as a good feel for what needs to be changed.

Whether or not that can get Bubba Ventrone the job remains to be seen but it’s good to see that he is receiving the opportunity to interview and is joining the list of candidates for Indy that could possibly be the coach in charge going into next season.

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