Former Bills QB Reich tutors perhaps NFL's best in Manning
Published: February 05, 2010, 8:23 am
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MIAMI — Frank Reich has heard the question in one form or another a hundred times: What’s it like having the easiest job in the National Football League?
Funny. If they only knew the real story.
As quarterbacks coach of the Indianapolis Colts, Reich tutors the most gifted and talented student in pro football — Peyton Manning.
Part of what makes Manning great is his insatiable desire to know every detail of his opponents and how to decode the Rubik’s cube that is the opposing defensive scheme.
It is Reich’s job to keep pace with the smartest player in the NFL and to help feed him all the information he craves.
Frank Reich on his role working with Peyton Manning
Visit the BillBoard blog for more Frank Reich audio clips.
“It’s impressive to watch him every day, because you see how hard he works and how much talent he has,” says Reich, the former Buffalo Bills quarterback and cult hero. “He just raises the bar for everybody, players and coaches alike.
“So in some respects, I have the hardest job in the NFL. You’ve got to bring your ‘A’ game every day, at every practice. The great players I’ve been around all want to be coached, they want to learn. Peyton is always processing through information.”
Imagine being the tutor for football’s Einstein.
He’s going to ask some tough questions in the classroom. As the coach, you’d better know the answer. And if you don’t, you’d better be able to figure it out pretty fast.
“We’re like his research and development team,” Reich said. “I’m just one guy in a network of guys he uses. I’m glad it’s a five- or six-man [coaching] team. No one quarterback coach could do what is necessary for Peyton to be as prepared as he wants to get on Sunday. For some players that would bog them down. It only speeds him up. You wonder if it’s ever too much information, but I haven’t seen that happen to him yet.”
Reich, 48, is just the man for the Colts’ job. As the Bills’ No. 2 quarterback from 1985 to 1994, he was the confidante of Hall of Famer Jim Kelly. Between 1989 and '92, Reich went 6-0 in relief of Kelly in games that mattered in the standings, including 2-0 in the playoffs. Among those was the greatest comeback in NFL history, against Houston in January 1993. The Bills, down 35-3 early in the second half, pulled out a 41-38 victory in overtime. Reich wound up playing 13 NFL seasons.
That’s a resume Manning respects.
“Frank’s got a lot of football knowledge, serving as sort of a mentor-type coach to Jim Kelly the majority of his career and then being called upon to play and leading one of the greatest comebacks of all time,” Manning said. “At this point of my career, being a veteran, I like having someone who’s played longer than me.
“He’s a tireless worker. He’s a grinder. He’s a guy who’s going to be over there late at night. He and I text each other all the time. Hey, check out the Buffalo game, play No. 40. It’s a look we might see. I like that. I like a guy who’s constantly got football on his mind. I lean on Frank. I ask him a lot of questions.”
The respect is mutual.
“I love that,” Reich said of Manning’s constant inquisitiveness. “That’s why I’m doing it. I love the aspect of coaching of trying to strategize. How are we going to beat the opponent?”
Colts President Bill Polian, the former Bills general manager, recognized Reich’s potential as a coach almost as soon as Buffalo drafted Reich in the third round in 1985.
“After my rookie season, he called me into his office and said, ‘Hey, you need to be a coach one day,' " Reich recalled. “He said, ‘Play as long as you can. Then when you retire, I want you to come coach wherever I’m at.’
“True to form, when I retired in 1998, he had taken the job here [in Indianapolis], and he called me up and asked me if I would consider coaching.
“He said, ‘I’m going to draft Peyton Manning, and I’d like you to come be the quarterback coach.’
“I was blown away. I said give me a couple days to think about it. I wasn’t quite ready to make that time commitment.”
Reich, a devout Christian, took another path, becoming an ordained minister. He worked for three years as president of Reformed Theological Seminary in North Carolina. He spent a year as a pastor at Ballantyne Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, N.C.
Eventually, he could not resist the urge to return to football.
“There were a lot of factors in the decision,” Reich said. “Family was a huge factor. The kids are getting older. The oldest is in college. The youngest is in eighth grade. I have another one who’s going to college next year. It was much easier. I felt like I’ve been able to change the diapers, be at all the sporting events, the plays and recitals, not that I’m saying the parenting is over.
“The other factor was I was out of it for nine, 10 years. If I was going to get back in at this level, I really couldn’t wait much longer. Ten years is kind of pushing it. So how am I going to call up a team after 15 years and say I haven’t had anything to do with football for 15 years and now let me be a quarterback coach?”
Reich called Polian. “I know this isn’t the exact timing that we saw, but do you still want to see me in coaching?” Reich asked Polian.
Reich was an offensive aide in '08 and got promoted to QB coach this season. Now he is back in the Super Bowl. He said this week’s events have stirred memories of the Bills’ Super Bowl visits.
“It brings back good memories, really good memories,” Reich said. “The experience of playing in this game was great. . . . We never won it. I can live with that. But it doesn’t take away from the journey to get here and the experience. It’s the old adage, I’d still rather have played in it than never have played in it at all.”
Former Bills coach Marv Levy always said Reich’s great perspective on life helped him excel under pressure. Reich’s enlightened outlook remains evident.
“I’m only really qualified to teach two things, the Bible and football,” he said. “There’s an aspect of coaching in football that really makes expressing your faith a little bit more earthy.
“I was in full-time ministry talking to people about living out your faith in your daily life. Now to do it as a coach is challenging. It’s a great opportunity to continue the ministry. I’m not ending the ministry. This is a continuation.”
Of his time as a pastor, Reich said: “I learned great lessons in leadership that prepared me to coach in some ways that playing didn’t. It helped develop teaching and leadership skills.”
He’s using all of those skills on his star pupil.
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