Frank Reich and Colts stop fooling around, get bold, and now the season has hope | Opinion
INDIANAPOLIS – The safe play was a field goal. The Colts had the ball inside the Jacksonville 30, down a point, less than one minute to play. They called one running play, then another. This is who the 2022 Indianapolis Colts have been all season: Boring, predictable, beatable. But then Jacksonville coach Doug Pederson made his biggest mistake of the day, a mistake that allowed the Colts to win 34-27 and move back into position for an AFC South crown.
Pederson called a timeout.
Something happened to Colts coach Frank Reich during that timeout. Over the loudspeakers, "Baba O'Riley", better known as “Teenage Wasteland” by The Who, is playing. Colts kicker Chase McLaughlin is standing by himself 20 yards from the rest of the team, walking past his practice net, staring at it, using it one last time. The Colts are at the 32-yard line, third down, 23 seconds left. One more running play, and McLaughlin is ready to try a game-winner from about 50 yards.
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It’s not the most likeable strategy, but it is the safest. And for five games this season, Frank Reich has been nothing if not safe. Predictable.
Beatable.
“Teenage Wasteland” is still blaring through Lucas Oil Stadium.
Out here in the fields
I fight for my meals
I get my back into my living
Safe, predictable, beatable? For most this game, for most of this day, Reich hadn’t been any of that. He’d been the Reich we fell in love with when he arrived back in 2018, spreading the field and chucking it all over the place and running trick plays. He’d been Feisty Frank from the start of this week, too, reinventing the team’s offense on the fly, telling the Colts they’d be running the no-huddle attack from the start of the game. Spread the field. Chuck it all over the place. Dare Jacksonville to stop it.
Jacksonville couldn’t stop it, which is why the Colts had season highs in points and yards with time still left on the clock. But inside the final minute, inside the 35, close enough for a long field goal, the Colts got boring. Predictable. One running play. Then another. Doug Pederson could see what was happening; he could see one more running play, then a field goal. He called timeout to stop the clock.
That’s when Reich noticed something.
QB Matt Ryan has comeback DNA
Rookie wide receiver Alec Pierce had been lining up far from the football, because that’s where receivers line up. A decoy, you call that, and the Jaguars weren’t fooled. They sent just one defensive back to “cover” Pierce – you know, just in case – and crowded the line of scrimmage with their other 10 players. That’s where the ball was going for one running play, then another.
The field goal was there. McLaughlin could make it. He’s 9-for-10 this season, with three conversions from 50 yards or more. You go for the kick, and make or miss, you live with the results.
I don't need to fight
To prove I'm right
I don't need to be forgiven.
While some of you are reading those lyrics and humming along to “Teenage Wasteland,” I’m thinking of a scene in “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.” Well, I am. It’s that scene where the Grinch hears all those Who’s singing on Christmas morning, celebrating the day even if their presents and trees have been stolen, and his heart grows two sizes. Remember that? The Grinch’s heart bursts right out of that box on the TV screen.
That’s Reich on the sideline, down a point, less than 30 seconds left. With Doug Pederson and everyone else in the stadium expecting one more running play, Reich’s audacity grows two sizes. Bursts right out of his mouth, right there on the sideline, as he’s talking with Colts quarterback Matt Ryan.
Forget the run, Reich decides. We’re not doing that.
We’re throwing the ball to Alec Pierce, he’s telling Ryan. If the Jaguars do what they’ve been doing, we’re going for the win right here and now.
And Ryan, man, he’s loving it. Say what you want about the way he’s played at times this season – and we have – but Ryan becomes something different in the final two minutes. Game on the line, he becomes one of the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history. Now, you can say that’s nonsense. I see your point, and raise you this fact:
Ryan entered Sunday with 36 career fourth-quarter comebacks, tied for fourth all-time. More than Brees, more than Marino, more than Elway, more than Favre.
“There’s something wired into (Ryan’s) DNA,” Reich will tell us later, “that’s just different that way.”
Ryan goes back onto the field. He has his marching orders. Tailback Phillip Lindsay lines up in the backfield. One more carry. Jacksonville is ready.
WR Alec Pierce has big-play DNA
This is how it looks when the Colts decide to stop fooling around. Maybe this is how it looks when Frank Reich and his partner in all of this, General Manager Chris Ballard, see their careers passing before their eyes.
The Colts came into this game 2-2-1, the fan base angry and becoming apathetic, culminating in that 12-9 “win” at Denver last week. The Colts, who used to be so explosive that owner Jim Irsay actually complained about his team’s “Star Wars numbers,” didn’t score a touchdown.
Last week the Colts had made changes to three of five positions along the starting offensive line. This week they made two more – swapping right guard Braden Smith and right tackle Matt Pryor – with plans to make a third: Veteran Dennis Kelly, the former Purdue star, would rotate at left tackle with rookie Bernhard Raimann.
And then the Colts changed their backup quarterback. Gone is Reich’s guy from Philadelphia, Nick Foles. Into the position now is young Sam Ehlinger, who plays nothing like Ryan, nothing like Foles. And this wasn’t just for looks; Reich installed a package of plays for the mobile Ehlinger.
And then the Colts changed the whole offense. Reich and Ballard did. Maybe it was just Reich. Doesn’t matter, right now. What matters is this: Between the two of them, Reich and Ballard revamped the line, the quarterback depth chart and even the tempo of the attack. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and all that.
This offense: No huddling, and without Jonathan Taylor or Nyheim Hines, basically no running. Ryan attempted 37 passes in the first half. He was 42-for-58 for 389 yards for the day. Set a Colts record for completions with No. 41, a 15-yarder to raging bull receiver Michael Pittman Jr. to get the Colts into field goal range.
Then came a run, then another. Just like that, Reich’s audacity is gone. Let McLaughlin try a 50-yarder. Put the game, the week, hell the whole season, on his foot.
Pederson calls timeout.
Here comes the play, third-and-13 from the Jags’ 32.
And what do you know? Matt Ryan isn’t handing to Phillip Lindsay. And Alec Pierce isn’t blocking or running a decoy route. He’s flying past Jaguars cornerback Shaquill Griffin, just as he’d done earlier in the quarter, drawing a pass interference call that time. Pierce, the player Ballard wanted with the No. 53 overall pick in the 2022 NFL Draft, is faster than almost everyone on the field, and stronger than he looks.
This is the exact reason Ballard had said he wanted Pierce: To make contested catches downfield. With no safety in the picture – the Jaguars are expecting one more run – Matt Ryan gives Pierce a chance to do his thing, lofting a pass into the end zone
Griffin is a step behind Pierce, flailing at him, trying to grab at him, trying to interfere, but Pierce is muscling away and breaking free into the end zone and making the catch. Now he’s bobbing his head and jumping into Blue, bumping bodies with the silly mascot, while the normally stoic Reich is marching onto the field to celebrate with Ryan.
Later, Pierce will be asked what that final play says about Reich.
“It says he believes in our players,” Pierce says. “He wanted to go win the game.”
The Colts are 3-2-1, with a reinvented offensive line that gave up no sacks, a reinvented offensive attack that scored a season-high 34 points, and a reimagined coaching philosophy that remembers what it’s like to step on the gas and just go.
Suddenly we have an NFL season around here, one we might actually enjoy, one that no longer looks like a wasteland.
Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar or at www.facebook.com/greggdoyelstar.