Report: Parks Frazier to Call Colts’ Offensive Plays vs. Raiders for Jeff Saturday

The Indianapolis Colts continue to shake things up.

First, the team appointed former center Jeff Saturday as interim head coach Monday, despite his lack of coaching experience at either the professional or collegiate level.

Now, Saturday is reportedly expected to go with 30-year-old Parks Frazier—the team's pass game specialist and assistant quarterbacks coach—as the offensive play-caller, per the NFL Network's Tom Pelissero and Ian Rapoport.

Saturday's hiring was met with shock and consternation around the NFL world, both because the Colts had coaches with prior experience already on the staff like Gus Bradley and John Fox, but also because it served as another example of more experienced Black coaches around the league being bypassed for a less experienced white man.

"Because he's a better fit," Colts owner Jim Irsay said when asked by reporters on Monday about his decision to hire Saturday over the more experienced coaches already in the building. "He's the best man for the job. There's no question about it in my mind and I've been around it a long time."

Even Saturday was stunned by his appointment.

"Shocked would be an understatement," he told reporters when asked how he reacted to Irsay calling him about the coaching vacancy.

One of Saturday's first big decisions was to appoint an offensive play-caller going forward, a role that former head coach Frank Reich handled for the team. The Colts didn't have anyone on staff who had ever done so at the NFL level previously.

So Frazier—serving his fifth year on the team's staff and his first as a pass game specialist and assistant quarterbacks coach—got the nod. Last season, he served as the assistant quarterbacks coach, and also previously held roles as the offensive quality control coach (2020) and assistant to the head coach (2018-19).

The Colts, at 3-5-1, already face an uphill battle to get back into playoff contention, and given the uncertainty at quarterback, a poor finish to the season and better draft positioning wouldn't be the end of the world.

But it would call into question Irsay's decision-making on such a pivotal position for his football team. Both Saturday and Frazier are being asked to handle huge jobs with no prior experience in their particular roles.