Colts coach succeeds while flying under radar
Self-deprecating manner causes many to underestimate NFL's shrewd tactician
Frank Reich has yet to win an NFL coach of the year award and he's always been a perennial second choice behind sticky-haired phenoms, but name a sideline leader in the league whose mere touch has done more for the teams he has handled over the past few seasons.
Maybe it's the pastor's manner and the divinity degree that cause people to miss the full value of this grey-stubbled 59-year-old.
Or maybe the NFL just chronically mistakes jaw thrust for decisiveness and deviousness for acumen.
That is why some guys lose their locker rooms, while Reich's Indianapolis Colts teams always seem to beat expectations.
Attention is perhaps on the wrong man in the backwash of Philadelphia Eagles coach Doug Pederson's tank job. Maybe the more important figure to consider is the man who's not there: Reich.
More and more, you wonder just how much Reich had to do with that improbable Super Bowl win in 2017 when he was their offensive co-ordinator.
With him, Carson Wentz looked like a franchise player and their offence rose from 22nd in the league to seventh. Without him, Wentz has deteriorated into a brooding, displaced heir. With him, Nick Foles won a Super Bowl MVP award as a backup. Without him, Foles has lapsed back into a relief role with Chicago. With him, the Colts are 11-5 and in the post-season for the second time in Reich's three years at the helm. Without him, the Eagles are in the dumpster.
Total up the wins Reich has been associated with over the past four seasons, counting Philly, and he's at 41. That's only seven games back of Andy Reid. How many coaches can figure out how to average 10 wins no matter who he has under centre? How many coaches have ever put 41 points on the New England Patriots — in a Super Bowl — after losing their starting thrower to a torn ACL, as Reich did as the Eagles' co-ordinator in 2017?
How many coaches have won a playoff game in their very first season in the big office? Just three ever, to be exact. How many coaches could manage to go 7-9 even after Andrew Luck's sudden frayed-shoulder retirement left him with Jacoby Brissett? And then revive his team with a 39-year-old in Philip Rivers, his third quarterback in three years?
The only thing, you figure, that allows Reich to work so peacefully in this business without the proper regard is that he's by nature so self-deprecating and secure in who he is.
“The backup role has always suited me,” Reich joked when he got the Colts job only after Josh McDaniels reneged at the last minute.
Reich is one of the most insightful conversationalists in the league about his craft and what makes a good coach — or decision-maker in general.
“Having conviction is a good thing, but if you don't have the maturity to know when to exercise that conviction then you're a loose cannon,” Reich said. “That's the key. You don't want to be an aggressive decision-maker just for the sake of saying you're aggressive. There has to be discretion.”
Discretion? Yes, discretion: a discerning sense of time, place, and situation, and an awareness of how your words and actions are likely to affect others.
“Anybody can be an aggressive decision-maker,” Reich continued. “But to be a good one there needs to be two sides of the coin. You need the conviction and strength to say yes, this is the direction we're going, but you also have to be able to abandon that with discretion. You have to know, when is the right time to shoot that bullet or play that card? If you don't have that, you end up making the kind of decisions that disqualify you as a decision-maker.”
A striking characteristic of Reich's teams is that he has the ability to make his players feel equally secure in themselves, and what he thinks of them. The biggest word stamped on his locker-room wall is “Truth,” and apparently, they trust that he tells it to them. More than one has remarked on Reich's habit of coming right back to a guy after he has made a bad play, to give him a chance to redeem himself.
Reich's guys aren't predicted to last long in these playoffs, given that in the opening round Saturday they have to meet the Buffalo Bills, winners of nine straight under the horsepower of Josh Allen, and a coach-ofthe-year candidate in Sean McDermott. But arguably no man in the NFL knows better how to pull off an improbable upset than Reich, or has a more underrated burn buried in his pleasant personality.