Colts setting their sights on Nick Saban?

With Andrew Luck expected to miss at least a month due to abdominal injuries, it seems more certain than ever that Indianapolis Colts head coach Chuck Pagano will be fired before the 2016 season.

Is the team looking at Nick Saban to replace him?

During an appearance on Mad Dog Sports Radio Thursday, Colts reporter Bob Kravitz speculated that team owner Jim Irsay considers Saban his top choice.

“Jim Irsay is going to make the next coaching hire,” Kravitz said, via Michael David Smith of Pro Football Talk. “If he brings in a guy who demands full power, like, say, a Nick Saban, who I think he’s going to go after, if he brings in a Nick Saban, he’s going to have full power and that means that Ryan Grigson will either be kicked to the curb or he’ll have a different role in the organization.”

There’s a good chance Saban will never return to the NFL, but there has been speculation that he is unhappy with his situation at Alabama. We went through this before when it looked like Saban might leave Bama, but he was probably just using Texas as leverage.

In any event, Pagano is almost certainly gone.

“Jim Irsay does not believe that Chuck Pagano is the guy who can take him to where he wants to go,” Kravitz said. “He’s talking about not just one Super Bowl, but multiple Super Bowls in the Andrew Luck era.”

While I don’t think Pagano is a great head coach, the situation is almost unfair. One of the main reasons the ship is sinking in Indy is that Pagano can’t get along with Grigson, as evidenced by these comments. If Irsay gives Saban or someone else full control over roster decisions, he would basically be giving the new guy an opportunity Pagano never had.