Matt Ryan Impressed with Play Caller Parks Frazier
The Indianapolis Colts made a series of surprising moves last week including hiring Jeff Saturday as interim coach. Saturday then named 30-year-old pass-game specialist Parks Frazier as the play caller for the rest of the season.
Frazier got off to a good start as the Colts got the 25-20 win over the Las Vegas Raiders on Sunday. Indianapolis had its best rushing performance of the season, topping 200 for the first time, and they also got a cool, efficient performance from quarterback Matt Ryan.
Ryan, who didn't know he would be starting leading up to the game, was impressed with Frazier.
"I thought Parks did a hell of a job," said Ryan. "That's a hard situation, you know? And the first time doing it, to come on the road, to have all of the changes that we had this week. I thought he did a great job."
Ryan also praised how quickly Saturday pulled the staff together with all of the distractions last week.
"Parks is going to be a really good coach in this league for a long time," said Ryan "but we also have some other really good coaches on the staff who helped him through the week, and I think they all picked up the slack."
"Because we are short-staffed, there's no doubt about that. But the buy-in from all those guys, the way Jeff (Saturday) handled the week. It's amazing to me to sit here Sunday evening, after all that transpired Monday and Tuesday, and for me personally, kind of Thursday and Friday."
"It's incredible to sit here at this point with a win, so I'm proud of that. Proud of Parks, and I thought he did a great job."
Ryan is in his 15th season in the NFL, and it took Frazier one game for Ryan to get a career-high gain running the ball. His 38-yard scramble that extended the go-ahead drive bested his previous best of 20 yards set way back 2010.
“Yeah, sounds about right because I'm not used to being kind of in the open field for that long," laughed Ryan when told he set a career-long rushing attempt.
"A really good play call by Parks. We kind of went with some tempo there trying to see if we couldn't just pick something up, get a guy in space. With that being said, it opened up kind of a running lane to the right. It was man-to-man coverage, so everybody was kind of flowing to the left and I got out."
"I thought Parris [Campbell] did a good job of kind of getting it started of just widening it up, and then Ashton [Dulin] did a great job of blocking downfield. We’re at the point in the game where we need to make plays, we need to do something. We didn't need to press or anything like that, but when you get your chance, you got to make them."
"It was a great call and great job by Ashton kind of finishing down the field. Maybe if I was a little faster, I could have scored, but I do the best I could."
Don't count on Matt Ryan's 37-year-old legs to be a staple of the Colts' offense moving forward. But in Frazier's first game, the Colts showed balance running and passing that they've hoped to have all season.
And Ryan came away impressed.
