Reich is going to run outa scapegoats

[Mitch Connors]

6 minutes ago, gspdx said:

 

It's usually a few plays that make the difference.

• Pierce drop 
• Bad play call on 4th and goal
• Bad screen pass for int
• Fumbled snaps
• Dulin drop in end zone - I know it was stripped but he should have kept two hands on that ball to the ground
• JT running out of bounds and not getting the first down
• Ryan not throwing that ball away, going down, and forcing the longer FG
• And of course the missed field goal

To me one for sure is a bad play call.  Other than that these are execution issues.

 

With all of those miscues I am surprised we had over 500 yards of offense.

 

This goes both ways. Do you remember the Texans dropped passes on the first few drives that led to punts? They catch a couple more drops and they could have scored 30 points. 

[gspdx]

4 minutes ago, Mitch Connors said:

 

This goes both ways. Do you remember the Texans dropped passes on the first few drives that led to punts? They catch a couple more drops and they could have scored 30 points. 

Agreed.  I was thinking that during the game.  Those drives weren't necessarily stopped by our defense.  

 

But I am not worried about the Texans execution.  I am interested in the Colts execution.  Good teams execute, make plays, and don't beat themselves.

[Mackrel829]

53 minutes ago, Mitch Connors said:

 

I understand where you're coming from but my perspective is the team was good enough to post a 9-1 record to close the season then why weren't they better than 1-5 to start the same season? 

 

I realize no team wins them all but the disparity between the start of seasons (and games) vs the end has shown up so many times with Frank/Ballard that its impossible to ignore. Something needs to change. Whether that's Frank, Ballard, or something else obviously isn't my decision but the results are clear.

 

But I could just flip that and say if the team was bad enough to start 1-5 then what was it that caused them to improve so dramatically?

 

Also, two of those losses were one-score games and one went to overtime so there's that. Sometimes you just don't get the rub of the green. Other times your HC makes a bad decision in a big spot, and this is something that I've criticised Reich about in this thread and elsewhere.

 

I don't entirely disagree with you but 'Reich started 1-5 with Andrew Luck' is just not even close to being a comprehensive enough assessment of the man as a head coach.

[PRnum1]

20 hours ago, BProland85 said:

I’m not a believer in Reich either. He has to really show something this year in terms of preparing this team and in game decisions for me to want to keep him. 

I think I read an article posted on this website about coaches in the hot seat.

 

Frank was #4.

 

The entire NFL knows that Frank is on the hot seat even if we may be in denial about it on this board.  If the entire NFL knows about it you can be assured that Irsay knows about it.

 

I believe Frank is going to have to make the playoffs and even win a game to save his job.

I'm very sorry.

[BlackTiger]

Franks seat will warm up if we miss the playoffs, maybe even get pretty hot.  I could see him getting fired if we end up with a losing record and not even in the playoff hunt

 

The team has the talent to win the division, we cant keep letting the coach get away with less for like 6 years

[GoColts8818]

1 hour ago, PRnum1 said:

I think I read an article posted on this website about coaches in the hot seat.

 

Frank was #4.

 

The entire NFL knows that Frank is on the hot seat even if we may be in denial about it on this board.  If the entire NFL knows about it you can be assured that Irsay knows about it.

 

I believe Frank is going to have to make the playoffs and even win a game to save his job.

I'm very sorry.

Since it would be up to Irsay if he’s on the hot seat or not I’d hope Irsay would know lol.

[IinD]

I love Frank also, but he's gotta start getting us playoff wins and stop with the slow starts to seasons as well.

 

Can't be a victim of circumstance forever as an NFL coach. Things happen, but owners/fans only care about winning.

[LJpalmbeacher2]

On 9/13/2022 at 5:29 PM, bleed blue4life said:

First its Carson now its HotRod . Is Pearce  or Dulin next? more than enough blame to go around this weekend for this tie. How about Frank for not taking the points? Just a matter of time before Jim makes Reich the scapegoat. I am tired of hearing that is on me gotta get better. He has been here long enough now for stuff like this to not happen . Sorry for the rant but i just hope we are better with who we get to kick . 

 

Actually I'll say it will be Irsay who'll be running out of scapegoats. Irsay is responsible for wentz getting booted out. And speaking of 'booting', Blankenship has been a liability for a couple years and should have been replaced before this season. That's on Ballard keeping him until now.

 

If the colts go 0-3, I think Reich is gone and ballard's seat gets warmer.....but I think the colts get well against KC. I would say vs the Jags, but not winning in Jacksonville seems like a trend the colts can't break, just like not winning. openeners.

 

I think everything will be ok after the chiefs game, 1-1-1

[Two_pound]

So a lot of people are still criticizing coach Reich. Wah, wah, wah. Let's take a historical look at where coach Reich stands amongst Colt coaches since 1972. These are listed from most recent backwards.

   Reich-37-28

   Pagano-53-43

   Caldwell-26-22

   Dungy- 85-27

   Mora- 32-32

   Infante-12-20

   Marchibroda-30-34

   Venturi-1-10

    Meyer-36-35

    Dowhower-5-24 (those years were brutal)

    Frank Kush-11-28-1

    Mccormack-9-23

    Marchibroda-41-33

    Thomas-2-9

    Schnellenberger-4-13

 

So in 50 years the Colts have had 6 coaches with a winning record. Reich being one of them. And what's pretty remarkable he has done it with a different starting qb every year( but he did get saddled with Brissett twice and he STILL has a winning record. Historically speaking coach Reich has been beyond impressive. Now his task is to change history and start having post season success. I just don't understand why he comes under so much criticism.

[GoColts8818]

20 minutes ago, Two_pound said:

So a lot of people are still criticizing coach Reich. Wah, wah, wah. Let's take a historical look at where coach Reich stands amongst Colt coaches since 1972. These are listed from most recent backwards.

   Reich-37-28

   Pagano-53-43

   Caldwell-26-22

   Dungy- 85-27

   Mora- 32-32

   Infante-12-20

   Marchibroda-30-34

   Venturi-1-10

    Meyer-36-35

    Dowhower-5-24 (those years were brutal)

    Frank Kush-11-28-1

    Mccormack-9-23

    Marchibroda-41-33

    Thomas-2-9

    Schnellenberger-4-13

 

So in 50 years the Colts have had 6 coaches with a winning record. Reich being one of them. And what's pretty remarkable he has done it with a different starting qb every year( but he did get saddled with Brissett twice and he STILL has a winning record. Historically speaking coach Reich has been beyond impressive. Now his task is to change history and start having post season success. I just don't understand why he comes under so much criticism.

Small correction Frank only had Jacoby as a starter once.  The first time Jacoby was the starter was Pagano’s final year.  Still your overall point stands.

[Two_pound]

Yep, that's right, I hate it when I make mistakes, which happen way to often, thanks for the correction.

[Two_pound]

Something interesting about that list(I think anyways). The highest winning %'s are Dungy, Pagano, Marchibroda's first stint as head coach and then Reich. Dungy had Manning, Pagano had Luck and Marchibroda had Jones. Reich on the other hand has not been so fortunate. Meyer also had a carousel of quarterbacks: Trudeau, Chandler, Ramsey, among others. Let's keep Reich around for a while.

[GoColts8818]

8 minutes ago, Two_pound said:

Yep, that's right, I hate it when I make mistakes, which happen way to often, thanks for the correction.

No biggie I just wanted to point it out before someone tried to use it to undermine your point because your point is a good one and it shouldn’t be lost.

[aReggie7]

1 hour ago, Two_pound said:

So a lot of people are still criticizing coach Reich. Wah, wah, wah. Let's take a historical look at where coach Reich stands amongst Colt coaches since 1972. These are listed from most recent backwards.

   Reich-37-28

   Pagano-53-43

   Caldwell-26-22

   Dungy- 85-27

   Mora- 32-32

   Infante-12-20

   Marchibroda-30-34

   Venturi-1-10

    Meyer-36-35

    Dowhower-5-24 (those years were brutal)

    Frank Kush-11-28-1

    Mccormack-9-23

    Marchibroda-41-33

    Thomas-2-9

    Schnellenberger-4-13

 

So in 50 years the Colts have had 6 coaches with a winning record. Reich being one of them. And what's pretty remarkable he has done it with a different starting qb every year( but he did get saddled with Brissett twice and he STILL has a winning record. Historically speaking coach Reich has been beyond impressive. Now his task is to change history and start having post season success. I just don't understand why he comes under so much criticism.

 

How Frank compares to whoever was coaching this team in the 70s and 80s isn't relevant. I'm confident that when it comes to deciding on keeping a coach Irsay isn't asking how good they are compared to Frank Kush or whoever from the list. 

 

The standard for this team is not and should not be on par or better than what this team had under Venturi, Meyer, etc. This team hase made moves to signal they are trying to win now and they have a roster ready to do so. Matt Ryan at QB, being a RB JT is in his prime, Buckner, signing Gilmore, trading for Yannick. They want to win now and that has been clear the past couple of years.  

 

Criticism is to be expected when you have the talent the Colts do, struggle the way they did vs the Texans until the 4th, and tie it.  

 

It should also be pointed out that coaching changes are not always about win-loss records. Despite the poor records in the years they got fired I think the actual win-loss records had little to do with Caldwell and Pagano being let go. (considering the QB situations those 2 years) There is more to those decisions besides the win loss records. 

 

Regarding the different starting QB every year I think it has to be noted that both Ballard and Reich have responsibility for creating that circumstance. We are 3 years removed from the Luck surprise retirement. They chose to sign Phillip Rivers knowing he might only play 1 year. They chose to trade for Carson Wentz knowing it might not work out. They chose to trade for 36 year old Matt Ryan. And I liked the Rivers and Ryan moves so i'm not taking an issue with those. I just think we should acknowledge their own role in creating this situation at this point.

 

As things stand right now I don't expect a coaching change (certainly not during the season) but that can quickly change Sunday. If they don't win then come January I think the chance of a coaching change grows significantly and we will point back to week 2 as the point in time where that train really got rolling. Last season wasn't no feather in his cap for Frank both on the field and his role in getting the Colts to trade for Wentz. You can't afford to start the season 0-1-1 and think all is well. 

 

 

 

 

[coltsva]

I find it interesting that the Colts best years were with an experienced, previously successful head coach (Dungy), & an experienced, previously successful GM (Polian), but the last 2 hires have both been first time head coaches (at older ages) & first time GM's. If Reich/Ballard doesn't work out I wonder if Irsay would go back to an experienced duo, or try again with a rookie HC & rookie GM.. Although, to be fair, he did try to hire McDaniels before having to settle for Reich. 

[GoColts8818]

22 minutes ago, coltsva said:

I find it interesting that the Colts best years were with an experienced, previously successful head coach (Dungy), & an experienced, previously successful GM (Polian), but the last 2 hires have both been first time head coaches (at older ages) & first time GM's. If Reich/Ballard doesn't work out I wonder if Irsay would go back to an experienced duo, or try again with a rookie HC & rookie GM.. Although, to be fair, he did try to hire McDaniels before having to settle for Reich. 

Name me a GM the Colts could go get right now that has the history of Polian?  There aren’t many out there.  The only two close to him are the Chiefs GM and they aren’t letting him leave and the hoody who is going to be the Pats coach/ de facto GM until he retires.  Polian was kinda a special situation because he had a tendency to wear out his welcome with ownership so teams were willing to let him leave.  Happened with the Bills and was going to happen with the Panthers.  Still the Colts had to trade a third to get him but normally teams don’t let a guy like that leave but because of Polian’s personality they would with him.  When he got to Indy Irsay pretty much gave him total control and just faded into the background and let Polian call all the shots.  Todays Irsay I don’t think would do that.  It was made known part of the reason he let the Polian’s go was he wanted control of his team back.  
 

As for coach clearly the closest coach out there they could go get in terms of a winning vet is Sean Payton.  If the Colts do decide to move on from Frank I could easily see Irsay making a run at Payton.  There were rumors he had interest in him in the past.  
 

what this current team doesn’t have that made the Colts job so attractive to a guy like Polian and Dungy is the generational QB.  Yes I know Peyton wasn’t here when Polian came but you can’t tell me when Irsay decided to go get Polian they didn’t talk about the two QBs in the draft and which one Polian liked and why.  I believe Polian when he says they looked at Leaf but I think it was doing his homework thing.  I have a feeling Polian was always leaning Peyton’s way.  

[AKB]

Offense had over 500 yards but we are blaming offensive play caller? There were multiple turnovers that took points off the board. You can say that the Hines read option play in the end zone was bad. You can also say the yardage we lost leading up to the last field goal was also bad. But overall the offense was effective when we started running the ball correctly, instead of trying to pass first. 

[Moosejawcolt]

22 hours ago, Defjamz26 said:

Bottom line, the play calling has to get better. The amount of games we’ve lost in his tenure because of a few bad calls is starting to stack up.

500 yards total offence. 2 dropped touchdowns. Matt fumbled 3 times. Yeah play calling is our biggest problem.

[2006Coltsbestever]

13 hours ago, Solid84 said:

I don't think anyone will trash Vrabel if the Titans lose to the Bills, providing they don't lose because of him.

 

I do think Reich will get trashed if we lose to the Jags. Don't think he will get trashed if we lose to the Chiefs, providing we don't lose because of him.

 

If you want to be a contender (as you have frequently painted us as) you have to beat the bad teams. The Texans, the Jags, the Giants. Losing to favorites, like the Bills and the Chiefs, is probably understandable.

 

You are just being petty now.

Vrabel loss to the Giants so he already lost to a bad team. Reich tied a bad team. 

[Solid84]

2 hours ago, 2006Coltsbestever said:

Vrabel loss to the Giants so he already lost to a bad team. Reich tied a bad team. 

Yes, they did and they deserve being trash talked for that. You, however, were saying you would trash Vrabel if they lost to the Bills….

[2006Coltsbestever]

42 minutes ago, Solid84 said:

Yes, they did and they deserve being trash talked for that. You, however, were saying you would trash Vrabel if they lost to the Bills….

My point to this whole bologna is, you know if we beat Jacksonville the same 10- 12 posters will give Reich no credit. 10-12 posters are a lot. If we lose 35-34 to Chiefs he will get piled on by the same posters. I just look at other coaches that those same posters deem as great, why don't they ever say anything about them? Reich could coach the perfect the game and our FG could miss an extra point to cost us a game and the dude would get blamed. Quit being naive. Reich flat out got trashed in here on Sunday and he wasn't the only reason why we tied. If our FG makes a simple kick, we win. Some just flat out are looking for anything to trash Reich over.

[2006Coltsbestever]

33 minutes ago, 2006Coltsbestever said:

My point to this whole bologna is, you know if we beat Jacksonville the same 10- 12 posters will give Reich no credit. 10-12 posters are a lot. If we lose 35-34 to Chiefs he will get piled on by the same posters. I just look at other coaches that those same posters deem as great, why don't they ever say anything about them? Reich could coach the perfect the game and our FG could miss an extra point to cost us a game and the dude would get blamed. Quit being naive. Reich flat out got trashed in here on Sunday and he wasn't the only reason why we tied. If our FG makes a simple kick, we win. Some just flat out are looking for anything to trash Reich over.

If at the end of week 2 we are 1-0-1, Texans are 0-1-1, and Jaguars and Titans are 0-2, then we are in good shape. That half game (Being a tie), can still benefit us in the division because it isn't a loss. 1-0-1 isn't 2-0 but still good. Obviously Sunday's game is huge. I don't see the titans beating the Bills, nor do I see the Texans beating the Broncos. That tie was ok in reality.

[Yoshinator]

2 hours ago, 2006Coltsbestever said:

My point to this whole bologna is, you know if we beat Jacksonville the same 10- 12 posters will give Reich no credit. 10-12 posters are a lot. If we lose 35-34 to Chiefs he will get piled on by the same posters. I just look at other coaches that those same posters deem as great, why don't they ever say anything about them? Reich could coach the perfect the game and our FG could miss an extra point to cost us a game and the dude would get blamed. Quit being naive. Reich flat out got trashed in here on Sunday and he wasn't the only reason why we tied. If our FG makes a simple kick, we win. Some just flat out are looking for anything to trash Reich over.

I guess the problem with this is, we are expected to beat teams like the Jags and Texans. Until proven otherwise, they are bottom-feeder teams. The Jags only seem to do well against us, and the Texans were projected to be the worst team in football this by Vegas before the year started at 4.5 wins. These are games we have to win. 

 

As far as the Chiefs go, they are probably a better team than us with a better QB. If we lost 35-34, and it was a competitive game, I wouldn't give Reich flack for it. The reason people give him flack are his decisions in-game and his slow starts. They are questionable at best and awful at worst. He also repeats them every few games and never learns from them (an example is running Hines down the middle on 4th and 1 or 4th and goal). The playcalling is still Vanilla for the most part (TEs weren't very involved, no jet sweeps with Campbell or Dulin etc...). It seems he has used Rivers, Wentz and Ryan almost the exact same way the last three years so far. 

 

If Reich coaches a great game, people will give him credit. That rarely happens though. He's a below average coach that is set in his ways and refuses to change. Blankenship cost us the game, but we didn't score the first 3 quarters. That's inexcuseable, especially against the Texans. Any points in the first 3 quarters and we win.

 

If we struggle this much against the Texans, what makes you or anyone else think we will ramp it up Vs the much better teams on our schedule? Odds are, they are the worst team on it. Did Leonard make that much of a difference? He doesn't play offense. So we can't use that as a reason why we were shut out for 3 quarters. The defense was probably average without him, all things considered. They weren't the problem.

 

Sorry. Reich is the problem to me, and the only reason he even looks this good is because Ballard has drafted as good of a team he has besides the QB. If we had a rookie QB in the first round that Reich had to coach into a franchise QB, we'd have a bottom 5 record. The fact that Reich gets to coach a veteran QB every year is the only thing keeping him from being a bottom 5 coach, and that's with the rest of the team Ballard has put together for him that he incompetently coaches and makes look worse than they really are every week.

 

Sorry for the rant, but Reich makes easy games difficult to win, and difficult games impossible to win.

[Yoshinator]

39 minutes ago, Jared Cisneros said:

I guess the problem with this is, we are expected to beat teams like the Jags and Texans. Until proven otherwise, they are bottom-feeder teams. The Jags only seem to do well against us, and the Texans were projected to be the worst team in football this by Vegas before the year started at 4.5 wins. These are games we have to win. 

 

As far as the Chiefs go, they are probably a better team than us with a better QB. If we lost 35-34, and it was a competitive game, I wouldn't give Reich flack for it. The reason people give him flack are his decisions in-game and his slow starts. They are questionable at best and awful at worst. He also repeats them every few games and never learns from them (an example is running Hines down the middle on 4th and 1 or 4th and goal). The playcalling is still Vanilla for the most part (TEs weren't very involved, no jet sweeps with Campbell or Dulin etc...). It seems he has used Rivers, Wentz and Ryan almost the exact same way the last three years so far. 

 

If Reich coaches a great game, people will give him credit. That rarely happens though. He's a below average coach that is set in his ways and refuses to change. Blankenship cost us the game, but we didn't score the first 3 quarters. That's inexcuseable, especially against the Texans. Any points in the first 3 quarters and we win.

 

If we struggle this much against the Texans, what makes you or anyone else think we will ramp it up Vs the much better teams on our schedule? Odds are, they are the worst team on it. Did Leonard make that much of a difference? He doesn't play offense. So we can't use that as a reason why we were shut out for 3 quarters. The defense was probably average without him, all things considered. They weren't the problem.

 

Sorry. Reich is the problem to me, and the only reason he even looks this good is because Ballard has drafted as good of a team he has besides the QB. If we had a rookie QB in the first round that Reich had to coach into a franchise QB, we'd have a bottom 5 record. The fact that Reich gets to coach a veteran QB every year is the only thing keeping him from being a bottom 5 coach, and that's with the rest of the team Ballard has put together for him that he incompetently coaches and makes look worse than they really are every week.

 

Sorry for the rant, but Reich makes easy games difficult to win, and difficult games impossible to win.

Sorry, it was 4 in the morning when i wrote this. We scored 3 points in the first 3 quarters. My apologies.

[2006Coltsbestever]

1 hour ago, Jared Cisneros said:

I guess the problem with this is, we are expected to beat teams like the Jags and Texans. Until proven otherwise, they are bottom-feeder teams. The Jags only seem to do well against us, and the Texans were projected to be the worst team in football this by Vegas before the year started at 4.5 wins. These are games we have to win. 

 

As far as the Chiefs go, they are probably a better team than us with a better QB. If we lost 35-34, and it was a competitive game, I wouldn't give Reich flack for it. The reason people give him flack are his decisions in-game and his slow starts. They are questionable at best and awful at worst. He also repeats them every few games and never learns from them (an example is running Hines down the middle on 4th and 1 or 4th and goal). The playcalling is still Vanilla for the most part (TEs weren't very involved, no jet sweeps with Campbell or Dulin etc...). It seems he has used Rivers, Wentz and Ryan almost the exact same way the last three years so far. 

 

If Reich coaches a great game, people will give him credit. That rarely happens though. He's a below average coach that is set in his ways and refuses to change. Blankenship cost us the game, but we didn't score the first 3 quarters. That's inexcuseable, especially against the Texans. Any points in the first 3 quarters and we win.

 

If we struggle this much against the Texans, what makes you or anyone else think we will ramp it up Vs the much better teams on our schedule? Odds are, they are the worst team on it. Did Leonard make that much of a difference? He doesn't play offense. So we can't use that as a reason why we were shut out for 3 quarters. The defense was probably average without him, all things considered. They weren't the problem.

 

Sorry. Reich is the problem to me, and the only reason he even looks this good is because Ballard has drafted as good of a team he has besides the QB. If we had a rookie QB in the first round that Reich had to coach into a franchise QB, we'd have a bottom 5 record. The fact that Reich gets to coach a veteran QB every year is the only thing keeping him from being a bottom 5 coach, and that's with the rest of the team Ballard has put together for him that he incompetently coaches and makes look worse than they really are every week.

 

Sorry for the rant, but Reich makes easy games difficult to win, and difficult games impossible to win.

I guess we will see how the season plays out. If we win the Division, no way people should say Reich is a bad coach then. If they do that is just more hating on him. I am sure some will say, well it is a weak division, because the guy never gets any credit from the same people. 

 

Shouldn't the real Title of this thread be 'some fans are using Frank Reich as a scapegoat every time we lose'? What is funny is, we didn't even lose and the guy still gets dumped on. Taylor lost to Pittsburgh at home, Vrabel lost to the Giants at home, they are supposed to be better coaches right? What happened there. Giants stink by the way. Pitt is average. At least we got a tie and not a loss.

[coltsva]

8 hours ago, GoColts8818 said:

Name me a GM the Colts could go get right now that has the history of Polian?  There aren’t many out there.  The only two close to him are the Chiefs GM and they aren’t letting him leave and the hoody who is going to be the Pats coach/ de facto GM until he retires.  Polian was kinda a special situation because he had a tendency to wear out his welcome with ownership so teams were willing to let him leave.  Happened with the Bills and was going to happen with the Panthers.  Still the Colts had to trade a third to get him but normally teams don’t let a guy like that leave but because of Polian’s personality they would with him.  When he got to Indy Irsay pretty much gave him total control and just faded into the background and let Polian call all the shots.  Todays Irsay I don’t think would do that.  It was made known part of the reason he let the Polian’s go was he wanted control of his team back.  
 

As for coach clearly the closest coach out there they could go get in terms of a winning vet is Sean Payton.  If the Colts do decide to move on from Frank I could easily see Irsay making a run at Payton.  There were rumors he had interest in him in the past.  
 

what this current team doesn’t have that made the Colts job so attractive to a guy like Polian and Dungy is the generational QB.  Yes I know Peyton wasn’t here when Polian came but you can’t tell me when Irsay decided to go get Polian they didn’t talk about the two QBs in the draft and which one Polian liked and why.  I believe Polian when he says they looked at Leaf but I think it was doing his homework thing.  I have a feeling Polian was always leaning Peyton’s way.  

Agree with most of what you wrote. I was merely making an observation, and wondering why Irsay back in 2012 didn't try to repeat what worked the first time, or at least mimic it as close as possible.

One thing of note is, in 2012, the Colts did have a generational QB coming in which made the job extremely attractive, when Irsay chose to put Luck's and the franchise's future in the hands of a rookie HC and a rookie GM. That was a huge error in judgement. In the second instance, the QB was still in place, and Irsay tried to hire a HC who was 11-17 & fired before finishing his 2nd year. Ballard, although a rookie GM, seemed to have more involvement in GM duties with the Chiefs (Director of Football Operations).

 

 

[Solid84]

5 hours ago, 2006Coltsbestever said:

My point to this whole bologna is, you know if we beat Jacksonville the same 10- 12 posters will give Reich no credit. 10-12 posters are a lot. If we lose 35-34 to Chiefs he will get piled on by the same posters. I just look at other coaches that those same posters deem as great, why don't they ever say anything about them? Reich could coach the perfect the game and our FG could miss an extra point to cost us a game and the dude would get blamed. Quit being naive. Reich flat out got trashed in here on Sunday and he wasn't the only reason why we tied. If our FG makes a simple kick, we win. Some just flat out are looking for anything to trash Reich over.

Some people will complain no matter what, we can agree to that. But even if Blank had hit that last field goal, there would still have been the same mistakes made. I don't get why some people here get so butthurt when they are pointed out?...

[Solid84]

4 hours ago, 2006Coltsbestever said:

If at the end of week 2 we are 1-0-1, Texans are 0-1-1, and Jaguars and Titans are 0-2, then we are in good shape. That half game (Being a tie), can still benefit us in the division because it isn't a loss. 1-0-1 isn't 2-0 but still good. Obviously Sunday's game is huge. I don't see the titans beating the Bills, nor do I see the Texans beating the Broncos. That tie was ok in reality.

It was better than a loss for sure. It's essentially half a win. But just as it can benefit us for not being a loss and can also screw us for not being a win. Every game counts at the end of the season.

[Nickster]

2 hours ago, Jared Cisneros said:

Sorry, it was 4 in the morning when i wrote this. We scored 3 points in the first 3 quarters. My apologies.

Partying all night JC?

[AwesomeAustin]

1 hour ago, 2006Coltsbestever said:

I guess we will see how the season plays out. If we win the Division, no way people should say Reich is a bad coach then. If they do that is just more hating on him. I am sure some will say, well it is a weak division, because the guy never gets any credit from the same people. 

 

Shouldn't the real Title of this thread be 'some fans are using Frank Reich as a scapegoat every time we lose'? What is funny is, we didn't even lose and the guy still gets dumped on. Taylor lost to Pittsburgh at home, Vrabel lost to the Giants at home, they are supposed to be better coaches right? What happened there. Giants stink by the way. Pitt is average. At least we got a tie and not a loss.

Even if we don’t win the division I won’t think Reich is a bad coach. I have always thought he is limited coach and his pitfalls are of his own doing. There are more things I like about him than dislike.  However, we have SB contender aspirations as fans and I just don’t think he is the guy for the job. I think his decision making keeps us from 2-3 wins a year.  Don’t get me wrong, every single one of them have mistakes by players that could be the reason as well.  Like QBs and star players, I hold the coach to a higher standard.  I want our coach to be the one that over comes the mistakes of players and make the decisions that doesn’t lose the game. 
 

As always, I’m taking a wait and see approach to the season and letting all play out.  However, I wasn’t surprised at all Reich made a stupid play call on 4th and goal or had Ryan rolling out on 3rd down in OT. He tries to “trick” opposing teams at critical moments more than just lining guys up in their best chance to succeed and letting them go make a play.  3rd and short in OT under 40yds for a FG, you run the dang ball or have the QB take a knee where the kicker wants the ball positioned. You don’t risk a turnover or a sack by rolling your immobile QB out away from his blockers. 

[2006Coltsbestever]

12 hours ago, aReggie7 said:

 

How Frank compares to whoever was coaching this team in the 70s and 80s isn't relevant. I'm confident that when it comes to deciding on keeping a coach Irsay isn't asking how good they are compared to Frank Kush or whoever from the list. 

 

The standard for this team is not and should not be on par or better than what this team had under Venturi, Meyer, etc. This team hase made moves to signal they are trying to win now and they have a roster ready to do so. Matt Ryan at QB, being a RB JT is in his prime, Buckner, signing Gilmore, trading for Yannick. They want to win now and that has been clear the past couple of years.  

 

Criticism is to be expected when you have the talent the Colts do, struggle the way they did vs the Texans until the 4th, and tie it.  

 

It should also be pointed out that coaching changes are not always about win-loss records. Despite the poor records in the years they got fired I think the actual win-loss records had little to do with Caldwell and Pagano being let go. (considering the QB situations those 2 years) There is more to those decisions besides the win loss records. 

 

Regarding the different starting QB every year I think it has to be noted that both Ballard and Reich have responsibility for creating that circumstance. We are 3 years removed from the Luck surprise retirement. They chose to sign Phillip Rivers knowing he might only play 1 year. They chose to trade for Carson Wentz knowing it might not work out. They chose to trade for 36 year old Matt Ryan. And I liked the Rivers and Ryan moves so i'm not taking an issue with those. I just think we should acknowledge their own role in creating this situation at this point.

 

As things stand right now I don't expect a coaching change (certainly not during the season) but that can quickly change Sunday. If they don't win then come January I think the chance of a coaching change grows significantly and we will point back to week 2 as the point in time where that train really got rolling. Last season wasn't no feather in his cap for Frank both on the field and his role in getting the Colts to trade for Wentz. You can't afford to start the season 0-1-1 and think all is well. 

 

 

 

 

Criticizing him is not my problem, this is where some aren't understanding what I am posting. It is the few that blame him for every loss is the problem. I criticize him, I was critical of him last Sunday on a few play calls but people saying he is a bad coach - not buying that sorry. That doesn't fly with ol' Homie .  He is actually arguably the 2nd greatest coach we have ever had in Indy only behind Dungy (I said arguably), his record is good and he has had done it with multiple QB's. He is better than Chuck and Chuck had Andrew Luck his whole coaching career except his last year.

[TheShadow]

On 9/14/2022 at 7:45 AM, Jared Cisneros said:

If it was one bad call, we wouldn't have 0 points in the first 3 quarters. In that case, it would either be Matt Ryan's fault, the lack of talent (in that case, Ballard), or the Texans are a great team. The Texans aren't a great team. The WRs are bad besides Pittman, but if that's the reason we can't move the ball, more people need to blame Ballard for that, and Matt Ryan probably had a bad game. A lot of his yards were in the 4th quarter and OT or in the prevent defense.

 

So if you think the playcalling was fine, do you think Matt Ryan and the WR depth was terrible? Because these are Ballard problems if you think so, and the blame has to go somewhere.

 

 

You put all the blame on Ryan and lack of talent. If you watched the game, you could put the blame on the whole team, as well as the coaching not having us ready.  If it wasnt for Ryan and some of that talent in the 4Q we have, we would never have rebounded like we did. I want to believe that our  team more represented the 4Q rather then the 1st 3Qs.

[throwing BBZ]

23 hours ago, gspdx said:

 

It's usually a few plays that make the difference.

• Pierce drop 
• Bad play call on 4th and goal
• Bad screen pass for int
• Fumbled snaps
• Dulin drop in end zone - I know it was stripped but he should have kept two hands on that ball to the ground
• JT running out of bounds and not getting the first down
• Ryan not throwing that ball away, going down, and forcing the longer FG
• And of course the missed field goal

To me one for sure is a bad play call.  Other than that these are execution issues.

 

With all of those miscues I am surprised we had over 500 yards of offense.

 

  Pure craziness to call Dulin having a drop. A real shame the other team plays defense.

  You did line up all the other bad.

    Frank called that sick screen to Hines maybe his 1st year.

   Back then he called it twice, like in the first game of the season or thereabouts, and BOTH times it was a similar disaster to the one Sunday.

 I do not believe he has called that particular designed play, with such a quick throw since the past disaster. Of course i lay it all on the Experienced QB Ryan, as his direct line pass was foolish. The ball should have been layed up in the air for Hines to go get. PERIOD!!  Frank F  Ryan F

 What i have come to accept is that just about anybody at this level could call the basic game that Frank calls. A young sharp mind creating and calling plays with Frank playing the co-ordinator roll is not a bad idea at all. Irsay and Ballard are taking notes.

[2006Coltsbestever]

4 hours ago, Jared Cisneros said:

I guess the problem with this is, we are expected to beat teams like the Jags and Texans. Until proven otherwise, they are bottom-feeder teams. The Jags only seem to do well against us, and the Texans were projected to be the worst team in football this by Vegas before the year started at 4.5 wins. These are games we have to win. 

 

As far as the Chiefs go, they are probably a better team than us with a better QB. If we lost 35-34, and it was a competitive game, I wouldn't give Reich flack for it. The reason people give him flack are his decisions in-game and his slow starts. They are questionable at best and awful at worst. He also repeats them every few games and never learns from them (an example is running Hines down the middle on 4th and 1 or 4th and goal). The playcalling is still Vanilla for the most part (TEs weren't very involved, no jet sweeps with Campbell or Dulin etc...). It seems he has used Rivers, Wentz and Ryan almost the exact same way the last three years so far. 

 

If Reich coaches a great game, people will give him credit. That rarely happens though. He's a below average coach that is set in his ways and refuses to change. Blankenship cost us the game, but we didn't score the first 3 quarters. That's inexcuseable, especially against the Texans. Any points in the first 3 quarters and we win.

 

If we struggle this much against the Texans, what makes you or anyone else think we will ramp it up Vs the much better teams on our schedule? Odds are, they are the worst team on it. Did Leonard make that much of a difference? He doesn't play offense. So we can't use that as a reason why we were shut out for 3 quarters. The defense was probably average without him, all things considered. They weren't the problem.

 

Sorry. Reich is the problem to me, and the only reason he even looks this good is because Ballard has drafted as good of a team he has besides the QB. If we had a rookie QB in the first round that Reich had to coach into a franchise QB, we'd have a bottom 5 record. The fact that Reich gets to coach a veteran QB every year is the only thing keeping him from being a bottom 5 coach, and that's with the rest of the team Ballard has put together for him that he incompetently coaches and makes look worse than they really are every week.

 

Sorry for the rant, but Reich makes easy games difficult to win, and difficult games impossible to win.

I always expect to beat bad teams, Sunday surprised the hell out of me. I thought we would win by 10. I am definitely not happy with Sunday but ok with it for now as long as we beat Jacks and keep improving because we got a tie out of it.

[2006Coltsbestever]

If we lose to Jacks and Reich is doing silly stuff, than maybe I will change my tune a bit. Sunday is a huge game.

[Yoshinator]

1 hour ago, Nickster said:

Partying all night JC?

Doing some Fanduel and Draftkings leagues. I'm up $80 so far from my $100 deposit at the beginning of the year. Just trying to get ahead from my best ball leagues early so I have a free ride from here on out on them.

[2006Coltsbestever]

2 minutes ago, Jared Cisneros said:

Doing some Fanduel and Draftkings leagues. I'm up $80 so far from my $100 deposit at the beginning of the year. Just trying to get ahead from my best ball leagues early so I have a free ride from here on out on them.

Good job. These games are going to be tough to call all year. A lot of teams are pretty even and the underdogs are hungry. I went 8-7-1 this past week without the spreads. We all know what the tie was  

[Yoshinator]

Just now, 2006Coltsbestever said:

Good job. These games are going to be tough to call all year. A lot of teams are pretty even and the underdogs are hungry. I went 8-7-1 this past week without the spreads. We all know what the tie was  

I did a 5 game parlay with the spreads and went 4-1, the only one I missed was the Eagles -3.5. The Lions came back and only lost by 3. Luckily, it's a yearly thing, and I can make up for it next week. I actually took The Texans +8.5 as part of the parlay as well. I can't wait for the game tonight between the Chargers and Chiefs.

[AwesomeAustin]

8 minutes ago, 2006Coltsbestever said:

If we lose to Jacks and Reich is doing silly stuff, than maybe I will change my tune a bit. Sunday is a huge game.

If we win in Jax and Reich calls a good game than maybe I will change my tune a bit as well.  We have to win this game if we want a division title and home playoff game. 

[Mr. Irrelevant]

On 9/14/2022 at 4:47 PM, John Waylon said:

His bad calls don’t come on a meaningless 2nd and 2 between the 40 yard lines. They almost always seem to come in big moments where it wreaks on the momentum of a game. ... 

This is what makes or breaks a great coach, giving the other team the momentum - or failure to gain it when needed - well… not good enough if you want to get a SB. 

On 9/14/2022 at 4:47 PM, John Waylon said:

His bad calls don’t come on a meaningless 2nd and 2 between the 40 yard lines. They almost always seem to come in big moments where it wreaks on the momentum of a game. ... 

This is what makes or breaks a great coach, giving the other team the momentum - or failure to gain it when needed - well… not good enough if you want to get a SB.