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Who was on the hot seat in preseason: Coach Frank Reich (fired Nov. 7)

Unfortunately for Reich, we nailed this one. He was fired in the midst of his fifth season after a 26-3 loss to the Patriots. Reich was beset by a revolving door of quarterbacks during his tenure, leading to slow starts to seasons and inconsistent results. He is still highly regarded and will want to coach again. We'll see what the marketplace thinks of him in the coming months. As for his replacement, Jeff Saturday, he's embarking on an endeavor unprecedented in the modern era -- becoming a head coach without any college or pro experience. He'll either revolutionize NFL hiring or be a funny footnote in history.

The Colts are the most unpredictable show on television. Just six days after the dismissal of Frank Reich and stunning hire of Jeff Saturday, Indy threw another curveball with the surprise decision to bring Matt Ryan out of mothballs and send the overmatched Sam Ehlinger back to the bench. Ryan took the opportunity and made the most of it, running the offense like the decorated veteran he is in a 25-20 win over the Raiders. It certainly helped Ryan that the offensive line played its best game of the year and Jonathan Taylor suddenly looked like his 2021 superstar self again. This had to be a tremendously annoying game for Reich to be watching from his couch.

Jeff Saturday is 1-0. So much for all the laughing you did when he was named interim coach. The smartest thing he did was bring back Matt Ryan as a starter.

Despite the sideshow they'd become over the last week, Jeff Saturday and Co. are just one back in the win column when it comes to scrapping for an AFC wild-card berth. Replicate Saturday's Sunday formula, and Indianapolis could even find its way back to the top of the AFC South.

Zak Keefer has the story on the Colts' improbable feel-good win in Jeff Saturday's coaching debut. This is stunning: "The Colts jumped to a double-digit lead for the first time all season. They had a halftime lead for the first time since Christmas."

Somehow more stunning, and even more improbable than Justin Jefferson's catch, was Matt Ryan's 38-yard scramble. That wasn't just the longest of his 15-year career, it was the longest by 90 percent! His previous long was a 20-yarder in 2010.

Here are the 10 active quarterbacks with at least 100 career starts in order of their longest career run:

Russell Wilson — 55 yards
Ryan Tannehill — 48 yards
Derek Carr — 41 yards
Matt Ryan and Joe Flacco — 38 yards
Aaron Rodgers — 35 yards
Kirk Cousins — 29 yards
Andy Dalton — 25 yards
Matthew Stafford — 24 yards
Tom Brady — 22 yards

No, Jeff Saturday winning in his NFL coaching debut doesn't make Colts owner Jim Irsay any less of a madman. Asking his friend to coach the team on short notice and bizarrely dodging a Rooney Rule question in his first press conference with Saturday is evidence of a disappointing, unsurprising fact that minority coaches are held to a different and often arbitrary standard in the NFL. Of course, a disappointing process can still yield positive results. Saturday was smart to announce Matt Ryan as the starter over Sam Ehlinger right before Sunday's game against the Raiders, and he quickly asserted himself as a leader in the locker room. The Colts are still unlikely to make the playoffs and opened Monday as a 7.5-point underdogs against the Eagles this week, but the unprecedented Saturday experiment is off to a positive (and potentially telling) start.

The switch back to Matt Ryan is not necessarily the wrong one, but the path to get there is strange. Jim Irsay said that the decision to bench Ryan was one he, GM Chris Ballard and since-fired coach Frank Reich made, but it was "always Frank's prerogative" to make a QB switch. It's hard to believe that. When the owner of the team is involved in a decision, especially a hands-on owner like Irsay, he'll have the most important voice in that conversation. It's fair to view the situation as Reich being forced into benching Ryan, then a few weeks later Jeff Saturday being allowed to go back to Ryan, who does give the team a better chance to win in the short term. It would be interesting to get Reich's side of what went down.

Can it continue? Yes, if they play the Raiders every week.