Frank Reich, who rode the Eagles’ 2017 Super Bowl success to a head coaching job with the Colts, was fired Monday, a day after the Colts fell to 3-5-1 with a 26-3 loss to the Patriots.
Reich was 40-33-1 with the Colts but with only one playoff win, a wild-card win over the Texans in 2018, his first season as head coach.
The Colts rank last in the NFL in scoring this year at just 14.7 per game.
After years of quarterback instability – the Colts used seven different starting quarterbacks in Reich’s 4 ½ seasons – the last straw for Colts owner Jim Irsay was likely Reich’s decision to bench veteran Matt Ryan in favor of last year’s 6th-round pick Sam Ehlinger, who had never taken an NFL snap. The Colts scored 19 points in Ehlinger’s two starts, both losses.
The Colts opened the season 3-2-1, including a Week 3 win over the Chiefs. But they’ve lost their last three games – to the Titans in Ryan’s final start and the Commanders and Patriots in Ehlinger’s two starts.
The Colts named their six-time Pro Bowl center Jeff Saturday as interim head coach. Saturday, 47, retired after the 2012 season, and his only coaching experience came at Hebron Christian Academy, a high school in Dacula, Ga., from 2017 through 2019.
What direction Saturday goes at quarterback has a direct impact on the Eagles, who face the Colts a week from Sunday in Indianapolis. It could be Ryan, it could be Ehlinger or it could be Nick Foles, whose 2017 post-season performance culminating in the Eagles’ first Super Bowl championship came with Reich as his offensive coordinator.
Foles, the Super Bowl LII MVP, has never faced the Eagles as a member of the Rams, Chiefs, Jaguars, Bears or Colts. He’s 3-9 in 12 starts since leaving the Eagles for a second time after the 2018 season. He hasn’t played this year.
Reich and Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni first worked together with the Chargers in 2013, when Reich was quarterbacks coach and Sirianni was an offensive quality control coach on Mike McCoy’s staff. When Reich became offensive coordinator in 2014, Sirianni replaced him as QBs coach.
Reich joined Doug Pederson with the Eagles in 2016, and Sirianni remained with the Chargers. But when Reich got the head coaching job in Indy in 2018 he brought in Sirianni as offensive coordinator, a move that led to Sirianni becoming the Eagles’ head coach last year.
Sirianni and Reich remain very close, and it wouldn’t be a shock if Sirianni brings Reich in as some sort of offensive consultant in the middle of the season.
And considering the success the undefeated Eagles are having on offense, there’s a fair chance offensive coordinator Shane Steichen – who worked with Reich in San Diego in 2014 and 2015 – will get a head coaching job this offseason. If he doesn’t get any head coaching offers, Reich could be a candidate to replace Steichen.
Reich spent 14 years in the NFL with the Bills, Panthers, Jets and Lions before starting his coaching career in 1998 as an intern with the Colts.
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