Doyel: I love* Colts hire of Frank Reich, and doubters can kiss my asterisk

INDIANAPOLIS – Frank Reich is perfect.*

See that asterisk? We’ll get there. There are warnings and disclaimers you need to know now that the Indianapolis Colts have hired Frank Reich as coach, but that stuff – the possibility that this hire could go sideways – can wait. The asterisk matters, but it’s not nearly as important as the four words that come before it, four words I’ll write again:

Frank Reich is perfect.*

Sorry. There it is again. But never mind about the asterisk, and listen to me: I love this hire.*

Oops.

But I do. Absolutely love the hire. Not as much as I hated the Josh McDaniels hire, but then, that’s a high bar. Or a low bar. Wherever the bar is, let’s not worry about it for now. Let’s run through the reasons that Reich is the perfect* hire to coach the Colts, and would have been the perfect* hire had he been the Colts’ first choice and not, ahem, seventh. In their first run at making this hire, the one that gave us the Josh McDaniels era, the Colts interviewed six candidates, and not one of those candidates was named “Frank Reich.”

Bothers me a little bit, to be honest, but not because it makes me wonder about Reich. It makes me wonder about Colts GM Chris Ballard. In addition to that little twerp from New England, Ballard also interviewed Matt Nagy, Mike Vrabel, Matt Ruhle and Kris Richard, and scheduled an interview with Steve Wilks that was canceled. Reich was on his list but Ballard didn’t have time to interview everyone, and we all understand, but clearly he prioritized the candidates – and came up with six names he wanted to interview more than Frank Reich. Bothers me, but let’s move on. Let’s move on to why it bothers me.

Because Frank Reich is perfect.*

Everything* about the guy is perfect, starting with his profile as a player: the ultimate underdog. Reich couldn’t start at Maryland (no shame in that; he was behind Boomer Esiason) but he was so good that when he did get to play, as a senior, he engineered what was at the time the biggest comeback in college football history: Turning a 31-0 deficit against Miami in 1984 into a 42-40 victory.

In the NFL it was more of the same. Reich couldn’t start at Buffalo (no shame in that; he was behind Jim Kelly) but he was so good that when he did get to play, as a 31-year-old career backup, he engineered the biggest comeback in NFL playoff history: Turning a 35-3 deficit in the third quarter against the Houston Oilers in 1992 into a 41-38 overtime victory.

As a rookie in 1985, Reich was talking to the Bills’ director of pro personnel when the team executive said: “You’re gonna be a coach someday.”

Bill Polian was right, wasn’t he? And isn’t that perfect, no asterisk? Reich’s first boss in the NFL was none other than Bill Polian. It gets better. And more perfect. When Reich broke into coaching in 2008, he broke in here in Indianapolis. The Polian connection, remember? Polian hired him as a coaching intern, and soon Reich was working his way up the organizational chart until he was coaching quarterbacks. His breakthrough comes, his first job as a position coach, and Frank Reich is coaching Peyton Manning. And Manning loved the guy. Called him “a tireless worker” and someone who was “constantly … thinking about helping me. I lean on Frank.”

Peyton Manning leaned on Frank Reich?

Perfect. No asterisk.

But that was then. Now? Perfect for the Colts, just perfect.* They need an offensive-minded coach and a quarterbacks guy to get the most out of Andrew Luck* – you know why – and they got one in Reich, who has played and coached only on that side of the ball, working with quarterbacks and/or receivers in Indianapolis and Arizona and as an offensive coordinator in San Diego and Philadelphia. His Eagles just won the Super Bowl. They beat the Patriots and their two-headed defensive genius, coach Bill Belichick and coordinator Matt Patricia. Scored 41 points. Gained 538 yards.

With Nick Foles at quarterback.

Perfect.

In Philadelphia they’ll tell you that Reich was something of a quarterback whisperer, helping to get rookie Carson Wentz up and running so fast that, by Wentz’s second season in 2017, he was the frontrunner for MVP before suffering a season-ending ACL injury. And when Wentz went down, Reich was handed the empty husk known as Nick Foles and helped Foles become Super Bowl MVP.

Note the words helping and helped in the previous paragraph. Reich didn’t do all that coaching by himself. That would be unfair to Eagles head coach Doug Pederson, himself a former longtime NFL quarterback, and to quarterbacks coach John DeFilippo, who parlayed the Eagles’ offensive explosion into a job as offensive coordinator of the Minnesota Vikings.

That’s a lot of people riding the coattails of Foles (and Wentz) into better jobs, or in the case of Pederson, into a Super Bowl ring as head coach. Maybe they’re all offensive geniuses. Odds are, at least one of them isn’t. Did the Colts just hire that one? We’ll see.

Hiring a head coach in the NFL is a crapshoot, we all know that. Before the 2017 season the Los Angeles Rams covered their eyes and said eenie, meenie, miney … McVay? And Sean McVay looks to be a stud. Before making what was widely regarded as a meh hire in 2016 in Pederson, the Eagles won the hiring sweepstakes in 2013 by landing Chip Kelly. You follow? The only way to know Reich is a great head coach is if, or when, he proves it.

The unpredictable history of NFL coaches applies to every new hire, of course, and I didn’t saddle Frank Reich with an asterisk – he’s perfect for the Colts* – because of anyone’s history but his own. For starters, in leaving the Eagles for the Colts, this is the first time in Reich’s career that he has left a coaching staff for a reason other than he was fired.

True story. The Colts fired him as receivers coach, his role in 2011, when they pushed Jim Caldwell’s staff out the door. The Arizona Cardinals fired him from the same job in 2012 when they pushed out Ken Whisenhunt’s staff. Three weeks later Reich became San Diego’s quarterbacks coach, then was promoted to offensive coordinator in 2014, then was fired after two seasons. And in this case, it wasn’t the whole staff being fired. It was Reich and a few other mostly offensive staffers who were fired after the Chargers finished fourth in the NFL in passing yards but 31st in rushing.

Fired three times in five years … and now two years later he’s the head coach of the Indianapolis Colts? That’s a little scary.

So is this: The Colts are turning over their franchise to a man with scant leadership experience. An offensive coordinator for four years, yes – 2014-15 in San Diego, and ’16-17 in Philadelphia – but Reich called plays only in San Diego. Doug Pederson was the de facto offensive coordinator in Philadelphia, perhaps because Reich’s play-calling in San Diego has been called “bland” and “vanilla” and “predictable,” all synonyms for “Chudzinski.”

So who did the Colts hire, the most perfect candidate possible? Or a poor man’s Pep Hamilton?

The day to know is later. The day to believe, one way or the other, is at hand. And I believe Frank Reich is perfect.*

*But I’m wrong from time to time.

Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter: @GreggDoyelStar or at facebook.com/gregg.doyel.

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