What analogy is used that puts Frank Reich in a great light?

Now joining us from Indianapolis, Indiana, the one and only columnist for the Indianapolis Star, Greg Doyle, my friend.

Thank you so much for your time, sir. I appreciate it. You got to always love being back in North Carolina. I know. Crib.

It's crib for you. I appreciate that. Let's, let's get my sister lives in Garner.

Just wanted to give a shout out to my sister who's probably I hope is working so she didn't get fired. But anyway, Garner. Love you, Garner. All right, let's get into Frank Reich. You got a chance to cover him for four plus years. Your read on Frank Reich. Before we get into the football code, your read on Frank Reich, the guy. Great guy. I've covered a lot of coaches, obviously.

I mean, two of you. Been around a lot of people that, that are, that I would not want to have his next door neighbor just because I don't like you. You could be famous, but I don't like you. Frank Reich, uh, not only can be my next door neighbor, I wouldn't mind him living in my spare bedroom. He's a, just a wonderful human being and you can be a wonderful human being. It should be a good football coach. So I don't want anybody to hear that and go, yeah, well, that's just, that's great. No, no, he's just away from football.

He is wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. And the kind of guy that, you know, and I've been doing this a long time, so I know when people are trying to spin me or at least have a pretty good antenna for it. And I always err on the side of you're trying to spin me, aren't you? Like, I don't believe anybody when they're nice to me. I don't believe it.

I believe they're just want something out of it. Not Frank. Frank's the kind of guy that will text me three or four times a year when he was here. And it was always to apologize for some, something that you would never apologize for. Like, like I asked a question to press conference and he didn't give me a great answer. And he apologized and said, I couldn't remember here's, here's what I should have told you, or I'm sorry. I was, you know, didn't give you much there.

Here's the background. I mean, he's just a great guy. And again, sincere about it. So I like him a lot. And we can talk football here in a minute, but you're not going to get, there are, there are people as good as him.

I'm sure you're not going to get a nicer guy. So Mike, my question, I saw you were tweeting about this yesterday at Greg Doyle on Twitter, by the way. Why did it, why did he get fired then? I mean, he's, I mean, I think we agree. He's a good coach, but why, why did it, I mean, is this all about, you know, crazy Jim mercy? Well, it's a perfect storm of a lot of stuff. Perfect storm. One is the team was put together.

Not great. He hasn't had a quarterback, a stable quarterback. Well, he never had one, you know, he had, he had Andrew Luck one year that he retired. Then he had, you know, a one year fix in rivers. They thought he'd stick around a couple more years. He did. He had Carson Wentz who they thought would be their next guy, but Carson Wentz is a terrible leader. So he's out. Then they had Matt Ryan who they thought had, had tread on the tires and it turns out he didn't.

So right. Cause you look at the guy's record, it's above 500. And you look at the quarterbacks he's had, this is a quarterback league and it's really damn impressive. However, it wasn't working here.

Um, and again, multiple things can be true. You know, people need to see the nuances here and the gray, not the black and the white. It wasn't working here and he should not have come back next year. Um, but I'm not sure Chris Ballard should be back either.

There's a GM, another guy I really like a lot, but he's, he's failing too. But ultimately why was Frank Wright fired in mid season? Because Jeff Saturday stuck a knife in his back. Um, Saturday played at UNC. Yep.

Sorry. Saturday stuck a knife in the back. Saturday was Jim or say's advisor this year.

Yeah. And Ursay is not one to fire you in mid season or say, or they've got his, his issues. Who among us doesn't, but, um, or she's got a great heart, great heart. I mean, he, he, he goes, he rallies towards people like Chuck Pagano, like Chris Ballard, like Frank Reich. I mean, he did a good Tony Dungy.

I mean, he, although I got some problems with Dungy, but he's got a good, good heart, good heart. And yet he fired a guy he respects and admires greatly and understands has been dealt a bad hand. He fired that guy in mid season, which is still out of character only to replace him with who? His advisor. Yeah.

Who do you think advised or say to do all that? And first they might not even realize he was spun. Jeff Saturday's brilliant. He's brilliant. We've seen him on ESPN.

The guy can talk. I mean, he's great. So if you're asking me, should we read into Frank Wright's mid-season firing as, as a red flag? Yeah. About Jeff Saturday, he stuck a knife in his back.

And I'm saying that, and I've written that and Jeff Saturday is as of right now, possibly, maybe even likely the next head coach of the cult. So don't think this is just me taking a shot at a guy. Oh, it's easy. He's out the door.

You just find a scapegoat. No, no, no. I might be covering that guy for the next couple of years, but that's how strongly I believe he put a knife in his back. I remember us talking to you about Jeff Saturday and I don't want this to be about Jeff Saturday, but I remember when Saturday was hired, we talked about it.

You were, you were open-minded about it. He won the first game and they didn't win any more. I think they blew the second game.

They didn't win any more. And it does appear that he is the, I guess the front runner for that gig. How does Frank Wright communicate with players? We just watched Steve Wilks go six and six in a 12 game span.

And it was really born on players buying into what he wanted to do and communicating with them at an elite level. In my opinion, how does Reich fare in that area of head coaching? Well, I want to say something real quick about Wilks and we'll move on. And that is as much as I like Reich, and I think he's a good coach. Um, I do Wilks should have gotten the job. You know, they, they, they gave, they had a guy who was six and six with those players.

Yeah. Despite being one and whatever without him as head coach, they had that guy and they hired instead a guy who's three, five and one with some somewhere else, you know, it doesn't, nothing about it makes sense. Nothing about it makes sense.

Um, that said, it is what it is. So Reich is a he's look, Reich's a former pastor. He's a pastor. Do you think he can communicate with guys? I mean, he's great.

He's great. And, and this will go over well with some people won't go over well with others, but when people were near the players were kneeling and, and, and the NFL came out with rules. Like you can kneel, you can't kneel, but you don't have to come out for the Anthem. Stay back in the back. But if you deal, you're in trouble, blah, blah, blah.

When everybody's trying to figure out what do we do now? Um, right. Nelt and, and, you know, told the team had time I'll kneel for you. I got it. I'll take the bullets.

I'm going to, it's a nice players love him. Yeah. Everybody. Yeah.

They love him. Now I will say this, um, as things were going south here, right. Very nice. Okay.

Very nice. I don't know that he's got a mean bone in his body. I don't know that he can get into him. And I don't know if we'll, I don't know what's at all. Maybe he can. Right.

I'm going to get into you. Right. Here's a guy that will be awesome. If the pieces are in place, he can guide that ship to a good level and, and, and, you know, he can maintain, he can handle success very well. Can he handle difficulty? I don't know, because sometimes you need a butt kicker to handle that.

And I'm not sure right. Greg Doyle from the Indianapolis stars joining us here on the Adam gold show. How does he handle criticism for decisions that he has made? Like, I don't know if it was his decision to get Carson Wentz or if it was his decision to bring in Matt Ryan, both of those were bad.

Uh, how does he handle criticism, whether it's game decisions or personnel decisions? Well, he absolutely brought in Carson Wentz. Um, Ryan was probably a mixture of him and Ballard, but Wentz is his guy and Phil Rivers too. I mean, Frank Reich is Frank Reich is the reason they brought in those new guys. So he deserves some of the blame for it not working out because he's the one that misread both of he misread scope rivers desire to play more than one year and he misread Carson Wentz's ability to be a leader.

So that's on right. Um, but he is the kind of, he doesn't, he hasn't done well. I'll answer your question here in a minute, but I want to get to this one. The biggest problem he's got the biggest issue he's got in addition to not being able to really, I don't think he can light into you when you need to be lit into, maybe he can, we're not there to see it, but I just don't think he does. The biggest issue I have with him that everybody can see is that he sticks by his players too long. He's too loyal.

Adam Vinatieri cost the cold four or five games four years ago. Cause right. Just couldn't, he was the goat, you know? Right. Right. Just wasn't a disrespect him like that. And that, and then he took the team down, right. Stuck behind, stuck with Wentz for too long. Reich believes in his guys and brings them here and they're not good enough.

So right. Needs to not, how do you do it? The player personnel, nothing, um, player roster construction. I mean, that's just not his deal. So how does he handle criticism in that sense? He doesn't respond like you think he does. He's not going to bench you if you deserve it. If he likes you, you're he, he sees the best. He sees the best. And sometimes that works, but sometimes that works, but, but sometimes it doesn't, as far as criticism goes, he handles that great. He'll say he'll, he'll walk up there after a game or whatever. And before you can ask a question, you'll say, all right, listen, let's talk about that fourth down thing here. Here's what I was thinking.

It obviously didn't work. I mean, he, if he makes mistakes, he'll bring it up before you have to. Well, that's certainly a change of considering the past head coach here, Matt rule, uh, one, one final thing for Greg Doyle.

Um, and I appreciate your time, a friend. I really do the, do you think that Reich's record is, I know it's a little bit over 500. Uh, is it, I mean, essentially accurate based on, uh, his coaching, did he get the most out of a roster or did they leave some meat on the bone considering who they had? I, I'm not accusatory or anything.

I am literally just asking. I think he got pretty much the most, um, you know, he had Andrew luck. They went to the playoffs. He had Philip rivers. They went, I think to the playoffs.

Yeah. Uh, he, he had Carson Wentz and Carson Wentz. Carson Wentz went nine and eight. And Carson Wentz hasn't done that anywhere.

I mean, he got, he lost his job twice in Washington. He lost his job in Philadelphia. He comes to the Colts and puts up 27 touchdowns and seven six. Carson Wentz will never have those numbers again. Frank Reich is great at getting the most out of a quarterback. Matt Ryan, however, fell off a cliff from that. Ryan just forgot how to hold onto the ball.

Matt Ryan just hit the wall and there's nothing anybody could do about that. Frank Reich, the culture three, five and one with Reich competitive, but it just wasn't working. Saturday comes in, they go one and seven and fell apart. I mean, they didn't just go one and seven. They gave up the biggest fourth quarter differential in NFL history to the Dallas Cowboys. And they were so ashamed of themselves. And Saturday was such a good leader of men that the very next week they had the biggest, uh, four lead give up biggest choke in NFL history. They, you know, the Vikings came back from down 89 points. So right. Got three, five and one out of them.

Saturday got one and seven. I think Reich Reich, his record is accurate. He's above 500 with the worst run of quarterback luck stability in recent NFL history. I mean, I think he's really good. The thing is though you better give him a quarterback. I mean, he's a quarterback whisperer. Give him a quarterback or it doesn't matter who the coach is.

You're not gonna win. Greg Doyle, Indianapolis star. I appreciate your time. It's Greg at Greg Doyle star on Twitter.

I left the star off before I shouldn't have done that. Uh, thank you, man. Uh, enjoy the Jeff Saturday era. If that's the way it comes, we'll check in again. I hope so, Adam. Thank you so much. Bye. You got it. And shout out to, uh, to Greg's sister and Garner.