How Frank Reich helped Colts QB Carson Wentz become a star again
INDIANAPOLIS — The word, that damn, dismissive word that followed Carson Wentz around like a shadow last offseason, always made Frank Reich cringe.
Broken.
The Colts head coach knew the facts, had watched the film. Wentz’s play collapsed in his final season in Philadelphia, cratered to the point the Eagles benched him and were willing to trade the quarterback this offseason, a move Reich had to admit he hadn’t seen coming.
Calling Wentz broken felt like a step too far.
When Reich turned on the tape of Wentz’s 2020 season, he saw a quarterback caught in a perfect storm, desperately trying to hold all of the crumbling pieces of a once-powerful team together and dropping to his knees under the weight on his shoulders.
The Colts bet heavily that Reich was right. The price Indianapolis paid to get Wentz essentially matched what the Kansas City Chiefs gave up to get a still-unproven Alex Smith in 2013. The real gamble was turning a playoff team over to a quarterback a lot of people were saying couldn’t be fixed.
But the Colts weren’t betting only on Reich’s word.
Indianapolis bet on his work. Reich is the man who built Wentz into a star, who steered Nick Foles to a Super Bowl, who’d already brought two Colts quarterbacks back from the brink: Andrew Luck from a catastrophic shoulder injury, Philip Rivers from the perception that he had nothing left to give.
The season is approaching only the halfway point, but it looks like Reich and the Colts were right.
Wentz is completing 64.4% of his passes, averaging 7.7 yards per attempt, has tossed 11 touchdowns and just one interception. He ranks 10th in quarterback rating, 17th in quarterback DVOA, and he’s been on a tear since his sprained ankles began to heal; Wentz’s DVOA over those four games would rank first in the NFL.
Put simply, Wentz is playing good football, and although how well he’s played is up for debate on both a local and national level — and likely will be for the foreseeable future, given how difficult it is to shift a national narrative — the quarterback has been a strong point for a Colts team that hasn’t lived up to expectations in a lot of other areas.
“This is the guy I knew in Philadelphia, he can be a big-play machine,” Reich said. “What I’ve been more impressed with — I know he can make those plays — but I like the way he’s taking care of the football, I like the way he’s handling the game, getting us in and out of the right run checks, just being in control out there and trusting his guys to make the big plays and making good decisions and being accurate with the ball, especially down the field, which he’s been off the charts.
Frank Reich is a quarterback whisperer
The Colts believe deeply that Reich is one of the NFL’s best quarterback whisperers.
With good reason. Few NFL coaches can navigate the switch from one quarterback to another; Reich has been remarkably successful despite being handed a different starting quarterbacks in each of his four seasons in Indianapolis, the fallout from Luck’s shocking retirement decision.
Reich’s approach to maximizing his quarterback’s ability is almost always the same.
“I think it’s always a great opportunity when you get a guy in his first year (in a new situation). It’s a natural: Hit the reset button,” Reich said. “These guys are well into their career, and you take advantage of that, but you also use it as a way to get a veteran to go back to the basics and almost do it textbook.”
That means everything.
Wentz has let out, little by little, the issues he knew he needed to correct. The turnovers. The tendency to hold onto the ball in search of the big play, a habit that has led to sacks and injuries in the past. When he was struggling in Philadelphia last season, his footwork, fundamentals and throwing motion suffered, leading to some of the mistakes he made, sometimes compounding the issue of getting the ball out on time.
“Being on time — the mechanics, everything — starts with your lower body and being in sync, being in rhythm,” Wentz said.
A coach could approach a quarterback by trying to play Whac-A-Mole with each problem, addressing it individually.
Reich’s approach addresses all of it.
“What we’ve tried to do, is, hey, go from the ground up,” Reich said. “Footwork, mechanics, discipline, discipline in the progressions, good decisions, understanding and being sharp and crisp, get the ball out, those kinds of things.”
An experienced quarterback such as Wentz, Rivers or Luck, somebody who’s seen a lot of NFL defenses, can burn through some things because they’ve become second-nature. For a lot of those guys, it’s what makes them great; a quarterback who has to laboriously go through every step on every play has a tendency to play slow.
A former quarterback himself, Reich understands that tendency, and as a result, he’s able to get a player like Wentz or Rivers to slow down in the early stages, focus on every step in the process. Colts receivers coach Mike Groh worked with Reich in Philadelphia; the Indianapolis head coach has always handled it this way.
“He’s firm on what he believes in,” Groh said. “And fanatical about the fundamentals.”
As the head coach, Reich cannot be on top of all of those things at every moment, and because of that he calls the Colts’ work with Wentz a collaborative approach. Five coaches play a role in the quarterback room: Reich, offensive coordinator Marcus Brady, quarterbacks coach Scott Milanovich, assistant quarterbacks coach Parks Frazier and senior offensive assistant Press Taylor.
Milanovich and Frazier deserve credit for working with Wentz on the fundamentals: His footwork, drops, keeping two hands on the ball at all times in the pocket in an effort to limit fumbles. Brady and Taylor play key roles in the philosophy and design of the offense.
From his role in the design of the offense, Brady has seen how Reich breaks every play in the Colts offense down to the basics for the quarterbacks.
“The dynamic of talking to (Reich) in the meeting rooms, talking through plays, having an answer for every coverage, just the mentality,” Brady said. “(He’ll ask,) ‘What’s the intention of each play? ‘What are we trying to get out of it?’ ‘If we don’t get this look, find your checkdowns.’”
Even the way Wentz handles the ball on play-action fakes and run-pass option plays is emphasized.
“It’s repetition, it’s discipline,” Wentz said. “There’s an art to it. It’s taking pride in even the simple things sometimes.”
Carson Wentz on Frank Reich: 'He’s willing to have tough conversations'
Asking a quarterback capable of NFL calculus to go back to elementary school for a bit isn’t something any coach can ask without frustrating the player he’s trying to lead.
Reich’s reputation and resumé command respect.
“Anybody who played for as long as he did and coached with people who played it at such a high level, with Philip Rivers and Peyton and the guys he’s been around, Andrew, those types of guys, there’s instant credibility with that,” Taylor said.
But it’s more than just Reich’s curriculum vitae.
The power of the coach’s conviction also matters deeply. The belief that Wentz was not broken, that Rivers still had good football left in him, that Jacoby Brissett could play winning football and that Luck would come all the way back matters to a quarterback.
“It’s really just the way he instills this confidence in you, this belief in you that guys really rally around,” Taylor said. “Everybody wants to know that somebody believes in them, and that’s the vibe Frank gives off, with the way he talks and holds guys accountable.”
Reich’s unwavering belief in his quarterback’s abilities means he’s able to have the uncomfortable conversations a coach has to have without the player tuning it out.
“You don’t have to be a screamer to get that done, but you do have to be demanding to get that done,” Groh said. “When they’re not getting it done, you’ve got to point it out, whether that’s an uncomfortable conversation or not, that’s our job as coaches.”
Wentz, who was criticized in Philadelphia at times for a perceived inability to take criticism, often goes right to the way Reich handles accountability when he’s asked why their relationship has been so productive over the years.
The two are constantly talking about every aspect of the quarterback’s play, from the physical fundamentals to the mental side of the game. From the moment they met in Fargo during the pre-draft process in 2017, Reich and Wentz have always connected on the X’s and O’s, but that doesn’t mean they always agree.
Reich has never been afraid to dive into the tough conversations.
“I think it was that mutual respect that allowed us to continue to get better and make each other better and kind of challenge each other and question each other, but from a healthy standpoint to have some really cool conversations that we can both grow and get better at,” Wentz said. “I respect that a lot about him, that he’s willing to have tough conversations because we come from a place of love and respect.”
How much better is Carson Wentz this season?
There are a lot of ways to measure how much better Wentz is playing in Indianapolis this season.
The easiest is the way he’s protecting the football. Wentz does have three fumbles, but he’s thrown one interception in 219 attempts, just one season after he tied Denver’s Drew Lock for the league lead with 15 picks.
Ask the Colts’ coaching staff about the turnaround, and almost every one will say that Wentz deserves most of the credit.
“Carson knew that this was something that needed to be fixed, this was a hole in his game that he needed to concentrate on,” Groh said. “To his credit, and to the credit of the entire group there that’s working with those guys, they’re seeing the fruits of that labor. You get what you emphasize, that’s an old saying in coaching.”
The Indianapolis approach to turnovers is twofold.
Running backs coach Scottie Montgomery has assumed Tom Rathman’s role in preparing the Colts for the way each opponent tries to force fumbles; Milanovich then applies that to the quarterbacks in the pocket.
Avoiding interceptions is a product of the way the Colts teach the fundamentals.
“That’s more the quarterback room,” Reich said. “Talking about drops and rhythm and timing and progressions, decision-making.”
The hard part, the part that only Wentz can handle, is knowing how to get the ball down the field without putting it in harm’s way. For the most part, it’s been a skill he’s always had, aside from his disastrous 2020 campaign; Wentz threw exactly seven interceptions in three consecutive seasons from 2017-2019.
Under Reich, Indianapolis emphasizes protecting the football more than most teams — Groh said he’s never seen another team approach turnovers the way the Colts do — but the Colts also don’t want to completely take the special parts of Wentz’s game away from him.
Wentz’s combination of mobility, arm strength and improvisational ability is an element the Indianapolis offense hasn’t had since Luck. The Colts rank third in the NFL with seven completions of 40 yards or more this season, just one less than they had in all of 2020 and already four more than 2019’s anemic attack.
“You’re always toeing the line,” Wentz said. “I’ve always tried to be a playmaker and make the plays down the field when they’re there, but at the same time, know how important that football is and we want to end every drive with a kick. So, I’d say I kind of have that back and forth in my mind almost every play of aggression but discipline, aggression and discipline.”
Putting the Eagles version of Carson Wentz behind him
Reich’s history with quarterbacks has a pattern.
First, there’s a complication — Luck’s shoulder, a COVID-19-shortened offseason for Rivers, Wentz’s foot surgery — that robs the Colts of valuable time in training camp. For that reason, the quarterback gets off to a slow but promising start.
Then, at some point, the offense finds its identity, takes off and doesn’t look back. Wentz is working with an entirely new group of teammates, and as the Colts find answers for an injury-riddled offense, the chemistry he’s built with some of his weapons has been evident, most notably with Mo Alie-Cox in the red zone and Michael Pittman Jr. just about everywhere.
“It’s been good for me as the play caller, working with him again, just getting a feel for our offense with him as our quarterback,” Reich said. “It doesn’t just happen like that. It’s just a little bit of a feel as we go.”
The better Reich understands what Wentz needs, the easier it is to build game plans tailored to Wentz’s skills.
“You can tell, we’re talking through a play and there might be too much dialogue and you get that look in Frank’s eyes,” Brady said. “It’s like: ‘That play is not getting called.’”
Wentz might have already found his stride.
Over the past four games, Wentz has thrown eight touchdowns, no interceptions, averaged 8.9 yards per attempt and posted a quarterback rating of 119.4. There have been hiccups, most notably a rough stretch in the northern California rains Sunday night, but the narrative that Wentz’s play was beyond repair has already been proven false.
The Colts starting quarterback is offering a lot of reason for hope.
“I’ve been confident in who I was as a player and everything, all the way through,” Wentz said. “I think it’s been fun just seeing the development of this offense and myself, the coaches. … All the pieces coming together.”
When Indianapolis traded for Wentz last offseason, the Colts were looking for the Wentz who threw 81 touchdown passes and just 21 interceptions from 2017-2019 in Philadelphia, confident that the “broken” Wentz of 2020 was the product of everything crumbling around him.
But the longer this season goes, the more the Colts head coach would like to put the Eagles version of Wentz behind him altogether.
“I’m really looking for the Colts version of him,” Reich said. “Where he keeps getting better and better.”
He’s in the right hands.