On the surface, the reasons why ex-Pittsburgh Steelers coach Bill Cowher ranted against the Indianapolis Colts’ coaching hire are obvious.

Not to mention, completely understandable.

But there may have been a little bit more to the subtext that is worth investigating.

In case you missed it, Indianapolis fired head coach Frank Reich last week after a 3-5-1 start. Former Colts offensive lineman Jeff Saturday was named interim head coach, with absolutely zero college or pro coaching experience.

That move by Colts owner Jim Irsay angered Cowher. He expressed his displeasure during “The NFL Today” pregame show on CBS Sunday afternoon. Cowher was particularly upset with the fact that assistant coaches currently on the Colts staff were bypassed for the chance to be the interim coach once Reich was fired on Nov. 7.

“For an owner to hire a coach who has never been an assistant at the college level or the pro level and overseeing a lot of candidates who are qualified for a head job — as we see in (Carolina Panthers interim coach) Steve Wilkes, an opportunity to build a resume — it’s a disgrace to the coaching profession,” Cowher said. “And regardless of how this plays out, what happened in Indianapolis is a travesty.”

"It's a disgrace to the coaching profession."@CowherCBS's emotional reaction to the Colts hiring Jeff Saturday. pic.twitter.com/B8QCSJZpPW

— NFL on CBS ????(@NFLonCBS) November 13, 2022

Wow. I haven’t seen Cowher that mad since, well, 2004, when I asked him about all of his home AFC Championship Game losses.

Cowher seemed particularly vexed by the fact that Saturday turned down an opportunity to be an assistant on the Colts staff in order to have a more manageable schedule doing television work with ESPN. Yet he was willing to take on the demanding task of being a head coach.

“What does that say to the assistants on the staff right now? The guys that were there in training camp. The guys who were there late at night. The guys who have gone through the first (nine) weeks (of the season) in that building,” Cowher asked aloud.

It’s clear Cowher is ticked off that Saturday got to skip the line without paying his dues as so many assistants—like Cowher himself—had to do before getting a head coaching job.

It’s also apparent that Cowher feels this is an affront to how things are done in the NFL. It’s a blight on how resume-building operates. It’s a Ted Lasso-wannabe carnival act. This is beneath the NFL.

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I get it. I totally see where he’s coming from.

Then (of course) Saturday won his first game as a coach, as the Colts took out the Las Vegas Raiders 25-20 Sunday afternoon.

“I don’t have to defend myself,” Saturday said after the game via “Football Morning in America” with Peter King. “I am absolutely comfortable in who I am. I respect all those guys. Whoever has whatever negative opinion, I can assure you, it’s not gonna change who I am or what I believe I’m called to do.”

I’ve got to go back to that one quick line Cowher threw in at the end of his monologue. That one short clip where he said, “Regardless of how this plays out, what happened in Indianapolis is a travesty.”

That was an interesting way to couch his words, wasn’t it? As if to say, “This is a total farce, but just in case Saturday does well, you should all still be ticked off about it!”

See, Cowher had to throw that out there because — to the goofy Ted Lasso point — what if this somehow works out? What if the Colts at least split their eight games with him in charge?

How is that going to make Cowher look? How is that going to make all current coaches look? How is that going to make the whole NFL look with the premium it places on coaching as an entity — with the emphasis it places on massive staffs, complex game plans, endless practice hours and in-depth analytical studies?

What if Saturday goes at least 4-4 down the stretch and the Colts don’t slam into an iceberg? Does that mean Irsay is maybe onto something when it comes to making out-of-the-box hires like this and shaking up the natural coaching paradigm?

According to Cowher, you should still hate the hire because (I guess) that’s just not how things are done, n’at.

To a certain extent, Cowher is right. The Rooney rule exists to prevent cronyism like this (for off-season coaching moves, anyway) in an effort to make sure fair hiring practice standards aren’t violated.

But to a certain degree, you could tell that the non-conventional hire of Saturday threatened Cowher’s sensibilities of simply how he thinks the coaching business should work, as much as it honestly violated his sense of right and wrong.

It’s making him a little nervous about the reputation of the difficulty of coaching, as much as it is disrupting the natural order of how to get a job in the first place. There is plenty of fragile personal ego on the line in Cowher’s remarks, as much as there is a profound sense of duty to be some sort of coaching ombudsman on TV.

And I’ll bet any amount of money that Cowher isn’t the only coach who is feeling that way.

Whether he — or any other coach — would ever be willing to admit it.

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