Zak Keefer | IndyStar

Zak Keefer/IndyStar

Matt Rourke, AP

UPDATE: A league source on Sunday tells the IndyStar that Frank Reich agreed to terms to be Colts coach.

Earlier

Almost a decade away from the game and finally Frank Reich wanted back in. So he picks up the phone and calls his old boss. Eight years out of football, he still hasn’t forgotten what Bill Polian told him during his rookie year, way back in 1985. “You’re gonna be a coach someday,” Polian said. Someday had finally come.

So Tony Dungy gave him a job. Jim Caldwell gave him a promotion. And Peyton Manning made him work.

Frank Reich’s coaching education commenced with the Indianapolis Colts in 2006; more than a decade later everything could come full circle. The Philadelphia Eagles’ offensive coordinator, basking in the shine of Sunday’s Super Bowl triumph, is the hottest candidate on whatever coaching market is left for Chris Ballard and the still-stunned Colts. Reich will interview on Friday in hopes of taking the job Josh McDaniels walked away from Tuesday night.

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The Colts sat down with Saints assistant head coach Dan Campbell on Thursday, and are also slated to interview Bills defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier, another former Colts assistant, Saturday. Don’t rule out General Manager Chris Ballard expanding the search. Don’t rule out this taking time – it’s not like the Colts are competing with any other teams for these candidates.

And don’t rule out some curveballs. As the last week has taught us, nothing is officially official until the ink is dry.

Michael Conroy, AP

“It’s football. There’s a lot of good coaches out there. There’s a lot of good assistant coaches out there,” Ballard cautioned Wednesday. “Everybody gets in panic mode and just starts hiring, and I just don’t believe in that. I think you’ve got to be patient. Take your time.”

So he will. At this juncture, weighing all relevant factors, Reich appears as impressive a prospect as any. After a playing career best remembered for a 32-point rally with the Bills over the Oilers in the wild-card round of the 1993 playoffs, Reich has climbed the coaching ranks swiftly. A staff intern under Caldwell with the Colts in ’06 and ’07, an offensive assistant in ’08, QB coach in ’09 and ’10, wide receivers coach in 2011. He worked under the likes of Dungy, Caldwell, Tom Moore and Clyde Christensen in Indianapolis; he mentored the likes of Peyton Manning, Marvin Harrison and Reggie Wayne. That’s some good experience.

The Colts had both Reich and Campbell on their initial list of candidates they sought to interview; both were involved in playoff runs that prevented the Colts from making the interviews happen. Now those sit-downs will occur, and the Colts will take a second crack at figuring out who will replace Chuck Pagano and lead this franchise into what is expected to be the prime of Andrew Luck’s career.

With Reich, there is certainly a familiarity factor, and it doesn’t hurt having Polian – a Colts’ Ring of Honor member, Pro Football Hall of Famer and trusted confidant of Jim Irsay – in his corner. Reich’s coaching career started after that initial phone call to his old GM, the man who predicted his profession all along. He spent the next six years on the Colts’ offensive staff, working intimately with Manning while the QB operated at the peak of his powers. Reich saw how the greatest in franchise history did it on a daily basis. The respect was mutual.

Clark Wade/IndyStar

“He is a tireless worker, he is a grinder,” Manning said of Reich before Super Bowl XLIV. “He is a guy that is going to be (at the facility) late at night. He and I text each other all the time, ‘Hey, check out the Buffalo game, play No. 40. That is a look we might see.’ I like that. I like a guy that’s constantly got football on his mind and thinking about helping me. I am grateful for that kind of effort. I lean on Frank. I ask him a lot of questions.”

It certainly doesn’t hurt having Manning in your corner, either.

But that cannot, and will not, be the deciding factor here.

Purged amidst Irsay’s ambitious 2012 overhaul, Reich landed in Arizona and coached the wide receivers under Ken Wisenhunt. From there it was San Diego, where he helped Philip Rivers to some of his finest seasons as a pro. Next up: Philadelphia, where Reich, along with head coach Doug Pederson, not only groomed Carson Wentz into an MVP candidate in Year 2, but molded Nick Foles from second-stringer to Super Bowl MVP in a matter of weeks. There’s no doubting his offensive acumen.

Reich was already going to be a prized head-coaching candidate come the 2019 offseason. Maybe the humiliation the Colts have suffered through this week has afforded them the opportunity to scoop him up before the competition for his services really heats up.

Clark Wade/IndyStar

While Pederson called the plays in Philadelphia, Reich worked in tandem with the head coach to construct offensive game plans. “He’s got the right demeanor,” Pederson said of Reich’s head-coaching potential earlier this season. “He’s a players’ coach. He relates to the players. He’s got the mindset, the mentality, the leadership qualities that you see. I think it is a matter of time.”

Furthermore, it’s clear the Colts were chasing an offensive mind for their head coaching vacancy the first time around. Josh McDaniels was their first interview. He had the most impressive offensive résumé out there. And the Colts were willing to wait, willing to wait five long weeks, before they were allowed to make it official.

So much for that.

But with a defensive coordinator in Matt Eberflus and his 4-3 scheme already in place at West 56th Street, and Chris Ballard backing him strongly, the void remains on the offensive side of the ball. Andrew Luck not only needs a head coach, he needs an offensive coordinator. The aim all along was to find him a system he could settle in for years to come. Reich could offer that. He’s a former quarterback who lasted 14 years in the league.

Michael Conroy, AP

Still, Ballard refuses to rush the process. He can’t get it wrong a second time.

“I think you’ve got to be patient, take your time,” Ballard said. “Tony Dungy told me a great story before I started this process. Tampa interviewed him four times (in 1996) and took their time, and he took his time with his staff. I think he told me, ‘Chris, it was into March when I finally finished hiring my staff in Tampa.’ So, we’ll get the right leader for this organization. We will get good assistant coaches, and we’re going to win.”

Of the three known interviews, Frazier offers the most head-coaching experience. A Dungy pupil himself, he led the Vikings from 2011-13. He served as an assistant head coach and defensive backs coach on Dungy’s 2006 staff that led the Colts to a world championship.

Campbell rose from coaching intern to interim head coach for the Miami Dolphins in five short years. (He went 5-7 after taking over for Joe Philbin in 2015.) Campbell has worked as Sean Payton’s assistant head coach and tight ends coach the last two seasons in New Orleans.

But very likely it’s Reich, instilled with a quarter-century of NFL experience – 14 as a player, nine as a coach – who offers the Colts the strongest sense of stability at a time the franchise is craving it. Make no mistake: The residue of the McDaniels fiasco won’t fade anytime soon. Nailing this next coaching hire is paramount.

If it is Reich, he’ll have something in common with his new quarterback. Back in 2014, Luck led the Colts’ to the second-biggest comeback in playoff history.

Frank Reich is the only quarterback who can say he’s outdone him.