Chiefs rumors: Dave Toub considered frontrunner to be Indianapolis Colts head coach
By Matt Conner
One columnist from the Indianapolis Star believes that Chris Ballard has already telegraphed his favorite for the coaching job in Dave Toub.
If you ask Gregg Doyel, Chris Ballard has been telegraphing his choice for some time now—long before the position of Indianapolis Colts head coach was ever open. The choice of Dave Toub was made clear when Ballard was first hired in ’16 as the Colts general manager and it’s remained the same ever since.
On Monday, Ballard and Colts owner Jim Irsay took to the podium at Lucas Oil Stadium to talk about life after firing longtime head coach Chuck Pagano. Ballard said all of the right things about research and due diligence, but Doyel remains convinced that Ballard has had a secret favorite all along in Toub, the Kansas City Chiefs special teams coach.
Doyel points to Ballard’s insistence that he has a great relationship and strong level of mutual understanding and respect with his future head coach, as the team’s general manager. He also points to the long-term working relationship between Ballard and Toub, one that goes back much further than their four years in Kansas City but also to a near decade with the Chicago Bears, where Toub’s work with Devin Hester first put him on the map as a special teams guru.
Toub received two head coaching interviews last offseason within the AFC West with the Denver Broncos and L.A. Chargers, as those teams realized his excellence as a leader. Now that the Chiefs have execs in positions of influence in new places like the Colts and Cleveland Browns (former GM John Dorsey), it is not surprising to see Toub’s name mentioned in those places.
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Ian Rapoport already locked on Toub and Chiefs offensive coordinator Matt Nagy as potential hires in Indy, so these rumors seem to correspond, although Doyel is the one selling Toub so aggressively as the favorite here. It will be interesting to see if Toub can get a job and make the leap from special teams coach to head coach. It’s an honor that he deserves even if all of K.C. would be very sad to see him leave.