Colts Coach Frank Reich Offers Message of Encouragement

INDIANAPOLIS — Just before signing off on a Monday morning video conference call with media, Indianapolis Colts head coach Frank Reich wanted to share a thought for the public.

In these stay-at-home times due to the Coronavirus pandemic, Reich wanted to share a message with the public that he had taped the previous day.

“I was just reminded personally, as I was thinking about this trying to give a message to a particular group, what hit me was the times — the analogy I used was being a quarterback in the pocket, and when you’re pressured you feel that but you can’t focus on it, you still have to find ways to make plays, right?” he said.

“The analogy was this: That the greater the pressure, sometimes the bigger the opportunity. So, in another words, when a team runs blitz zero, when the circumstances are the most difficult, when there’s a pandemic, when there’s the economy and people aren’t working and the pressure that is felt from that from businesses and personally, sometimes, I’m not saying all the time but sometimes like in football, those opportunities create blessings in disguise, ways to be creative, ways to create new solutions, ways to discover things that maybe we wouldn’t have discovered.”

He said he’s finding that personally in his own life and how the Colts are operating as a football team.

“My encouragement to Colts nation is: As hard and difficult as this time is, let’s just all of us together keep creatively finding ways to help each other and find solutions to get us all through this,” Reich said.

“When the pressure is the greatest, sometimes there’s the greatest opportunity for the big play. Maybe we can find ways to do that, in our families and in our businesses.”

Because NFL facilities remain closed indefinitely, the Colts are handling offseason training activities remotely through Zoom video conference calls. Reich said coaches and players are communicating on a daily basis, “just like we were in the building,” Reich said.

Players are also chatting online with each other while working out. And the Colts are able to monitor how their bodies are handling physical activity.

The NFL is expected to release the 2020 regular-season schedule later this week, but it’s still uncertain when teams will be able to resume operations at their facilities.

The state of Indiana has reported 1,115 Coronavirus deaths, including 360 in Marion County, where the Colts’ headquarters is located.