The Colts had planned to introduce Josh McDaniels as the 21st coach in franchise history at a Wednesday press conference. A press conference will still occur. But McDaniels, if you haven’t heard, won’t be there.
G.M. Chris Ballard will. The Colts have announced that the session will commence at 11:00 a.m. ET.
Good for Ballard; he’ll eventually have to face the music on this one, and he may as well do it sooner than later. And it will be interesting to see what he says and how he says it, given that there’s plenty of blame to go around on this one.
Some have more blame than others. McDaniels has plenty for giving his word and not following through on it. The Colts have plenty for taking McDaniels at his word, up to and including the moment they announced that McDaniels had taken the job without getting a signed contract first.
The guy who has the most blame, frankly, is agent Bob Lamonte. He’s the conductor of this jumbled orchestra, the pilot of this sputtering plane. It’s his job to deliver his client, and to realize well before his client gets cold feet that the temperature at floor level is plunging.
The fact that Lamonte also represents Ballard (for now) makes it even worse that Lamonte arranged a marriage that ultimately didn’t happen.
In a business where not many agents represent most of the coaches, the agents need to know their coaches better than the coaches know themselves. Lamonte clearly didn’t know McDaniels as well as he should have; moving forward, other teams may wonder how well Lamonte really knows any of his clients before taking the wink-nod leap of faith on a coach who has provided a handshake but who hasn’t yet wrapped that same hand around a pen.