Mr. Scot

Within this article, you'll find discussion of Reich from both his old players and his new ones along with insight from Thomas Brown plus some background on where things went wrong with the Colts. Excerpts: After the Panthers beat Houston in Brown’s first game calling the offense, Reich presented a game ball to the former Los Angeles Rams assistant. Reich got choked up the next day discussing Brown, saying: “When you believe in somebody and you put those hours in, that’s raw. That’s just raw emotions. So no apologies for that.” It was the type of genuine reaction players say they love about Reich, who spent 13 years in the NFL as a backup quarterback. ... “Frank’s super honest. He’s done everything that we’re trying to do. He played for forever. He was a guy in the locker room that guys rallied around,” said Panthers safety Matthias Farley, who was on the Colts’ roster in 2018 during Reich’s first season as coach. “And he’s just a man of character,” Farley added. “And when that is at the top, it kind of trickles down through the building because you know the character and the quality and type of leader you have.” ... Brian Burns puts Reich in the middle between Ron Rivera and Matt Rhule in terms of personality among the three coaches he’s played for in Carolina. “I’ve played for a lot of coaches so I’ve seen the ups and downs of a guy that’s too chill and a guy that’s a little overzealous. I kind of put Frank in that medium area,” Burns said. “He doesn’t get too down. He doesn’t get too high. He kind of just stays level-headed throughout everything.” ... Reich said he was “really, really” glad the Panthers made it through Tuesday’s trade deadline with Burns still on the roster. The respect is mutual. “He’s a genuine cat, in my eyes. He’s real,” Burns said. “I don’t see any cap in what he tells anybody. He’s genuine to me and I feel like everything he says, he means it. So I can ride with that.”

Honestly, it could just be one of those transitional things. Going from a college player that's used to having summers off to a professional who's basically working year round isn't an easy thing for some people. Failure to do so is a big reason why some guys bust out of the NFL. Perhaps in the second pro offseason, he'll take a better approach.

That's not something you want to hear.

That's just one of those things that nobody can predict. Dan Morgan was never hurting college but couldn't stay healthy in the pros. Puka Nucua dropped in the draft because he seemed injury prone, but as a Ram he's stayed healthy so far. You just never know.

Understood. What I was getting at though is that if it were on coaching, I think there'd be similar problems across the board. What I've said before about this season, and still believe, is that Ickey is out of his element in our current blocking scheme. Last year's heavy run emphasis was more his game if you want him to play the left tackle spot. Left tackle in a WCO is typically manned more by a smaller, more agile type. If we kept the emphasis we had last year, I'd have said keep him on the outside. In an offense of primarily WCO concepts though, he makes much more sense at guard.

Stories about the Raiders today have the locker room in a happy, "celebratory" mood. Sounds like the players really hated McDaniels.

For the record, I think Luvu's great. Made note last game that he pretty much single-handedly destroyed an entire set of downs on one drive.

FYI from Mike Kaye... Looks like the report was incorrect.

Is technique a problem with anybody other than Ekwonu though?

That first clip in the first link I remember from watching the game. Ekwonu went way too far back, had to extend too far to try and get any kind of punch and the rusher just went around him. In the second one, you can't see from the angle in the clip posted but as I recall he went down because Throckmorton either stepped on him or tripped him.

Gotcha. And if they are only showing one game rather than a doubleheader, that would make sense.

I'll throw in that for my part, what I saw the playcalling last game didn't indicate any sort of monumental shift (or even a fundamental shift). What did seem to make a difference though were some personnel changes. Raheem Blackshear being involved certainly helped. Tommy Tremble did better as the backup tight end than Ian Thomas had. And Chuba Hubbard working is the primary running back was much more effective than an only halfway healthy Miles Sanders. For that reason, I'd say if you wanted to criticize Frank Reich, looking at the depth chart decisions would make way more sense than talking about who wrote the playbook...especially when you don't really understand the concepts that the offense is based on. The other thing of course was the plays getting in faster. That and the personnel changes were the primary differences.

I haven't really taken part in or monitored this debate but I'll point out one thing... When you're judging defenders, you also have to pay attention to the way opposing offenses treat them. It's pretty common for one guy on a defense to rack up more stats because opposing offenses are paying more attention to blocking the other guy. Just something to consider

I'm pretty sure he doesn't actually know what a Frank Reich offense looks like. No mention of triangle read concepts or anything more specific than "lots of shotgun" tells me it's a lot of BSing.

Might help to know CRA has previously admitted that he sometimes defends dumb sh-t just for the hell of it. With how emotional he's gotten on this topic though, it sounds like he really believes it. I think the bottom line is he wants to use anything possible to criticize Reich. And apparently that even includes things that are borderline irrational. (like teams lying about who wrote their playbook)

You can find loads of examples of teams lying about who wrote their playbook? 🫢 I'd definitely be interested in seeing that.

I suspect that's also where it ends. (unless you were to do some more googling, of course)

It's kinda hard to have a "legit convo" with someone when you can show them a source that proves them wrong and they not only deny it for no good reason but then accuse you of being the one sticking to a narrative. That's been your strategy in a lot of prior discussions so I'm not surprised, but hey...

Saw some notes about that from a few other sources too. Doesn't sound like it was us.

What I find even more ridiculous than that is why why about it before the season even started? That's when the interview was given. Did Thomas Brown somehow know things were going to go bad say this to cover for Frank ahead of time? Talk about a narrative

Wrong on several points. The philosophies in the playbook are meshed, but the plays and the playbook were designed "from the ground up" (per his own words) by Brown. That's like if I wrote a story influenced by the styles of Stephen King, Dean Koontz and John Saul. It might include their motifs, but I still wrote it. If you look back, you'll see Spanish posted a summary of what the process might have been like, and I agreed. CRA has been trying to characterize that as me saying Reich had no influence on the playbook. That was never what I said, just that Brown is the one who wrote it. But then CRA needed to mischaracterize what I said in order to put his own spin on it otherwise his argument looks even worse than it already does. Likewise, it's not correct to call me a "huge Scott Fitterer fan" (I get that a lot) when my primary argument has just been that the circumstances don't merit just dismissing him. What I am also quite vehemently against is David Tepper making any more football moves without some kind of outside help, and yes that includes firing anybody currently on staff. No if you want to see I'm a huge fan of Frank Reich, that I am. I'm also inclined to give him (or anyone) tome to actually make their mark before dismissing them. We're only seven game into his tenure, but apparently people are already talking about his entire career being a bust. That's just dumb. And yes, acting like you could predict the whole season based on preseason games was dumb too; still is. So is overreading what we had last year with Wilks and not looking into the full context of things. Unfortunately, this is the way a lot of things on the Huddle seem to go.

Sounds like you're looking for a way out of this conversation before it gets any deeper than the surface.

I saw yesterday that he changed his jersey number. That's about it.

That's been my read. He's basically been having to account for his own position while also helping two weaker guards. Having Corbett back looked like it made a huge difference. Now if we could shore up the other spot...

And you consider those discussions on an internet forum authoritative?