Colts Head Coach Frank Reich: COVID-19 Scare Required ‘Adapting and Adjusting’

Upon learning the Indianapolis Colts had four positive COVID-19 tests on Friday, head coach Frank Reich said his team was prepared for the scenario after months of reminders to be ready for anything. When re-tested samples came back negative, the Colts practiced.

INDIANAPOLIS — Indianapolis Colts head coach Frank Reich was already up at 5 a.m. when he received word that this wouldn’t be the usual Friday routine.

General manager Chris Ballard advised that four in the organization had tested positive for COVID-19. While the samples were being re-tested, the Colts closed the Indiana Farm Bureau Football Center facility as a precaution. The tests came back negative late in the morning, the facility was re-opened, and the Colts had a walk-thru practice in the afternoon.

The Colts (3-2) will still host the Cincinnati Bengals (1-3-1) on Sunday at Lucas Oil Stadium (1 p.m., FOX-59 TV).

“We all talked it through, out of an abundance of caution we closed the building down, go through the normal protocols, rerun the test, so on and so forth – all the normal stuff, all normal stuff,” Reich said in a Zoom video call. “It comes back, the tests were negative. So again, out of an abundance of caution, those four tests even though they were re-run negative, we keep those four people out of the building for the day just for extra, extra precaution.”

Coach Frank Reich says he has weekly discussions with GM Chris Ballard on how to respond to situations such as a COVID-19 outbreak :: Robert Scheer/USA TODAY Sports

Since players arrived for training camp in late July, Reich has continually reminded them to be ready for anything because of the Coronavirus pandemic. Two players were placed on the reserve/COVID-19 list, and they were eventually cleared and ultimately waived.

But in the wake of the NFL having to reschedule games due to outbreaks with other teams, this was a different kind of situation for the Colts. And Reich thought everyone was ready.

“We readjust, we have our virtual meetings,” he said. “We still got the exact same amount of meeting time in. We went through all of our meetings just like we normally would and came in and got practice in – went through all our normal walk-thru and then got through all of our reps that we would normally get through in a day.

“So, I feel good about the preparation for today even though it was a slightly adjusted schedule. Players and coaches did a great job of adjusting on the fly. Really, it was not a big deal internally. It was just a question of adapting and adjusting. Again organizationally, I can’t say enough about the people working with, and Chris really in communication back and forth with the league early on just to make sure we were on point and on Q with everything we needed to do on our part to get ready to play this football game.”

After Ballard phoned, Reich said he called his coordinators. The plan was to still play, but just in case this situation worsened, coaches were advised to be ready for other possible scenarios, be it playing on Monday or Tuesday or if Sunday’s game was postponed.

“I’ve said this probably three or four times, every time there has been a ‘scare’ we use it, I use it, not to wear it out but just take a 15-second or 30-second announcement in a meeting, ‘Hey guys, remember this can happen anytime or anywhere. We don’t know. We’re built for this,’” Reich said. “Create the mindset that you’re built for anything. We can come from behind, we can win when we are ahead, we can win under any circumstances if we have to adjust without practice, with practice. Try to create a mindset – and that is easy with our team because of the kind of quality players we have.”

Reich reiterated his players have always taken the pandemic seriously, so the four positive tests came as a bit of a shock.

“I was having a long conversation with (owner) Mr. (Jim) Irsay last night, just talking about how well I think our players and our organization has done in this regard,” the coach said. “I mean you’re never foolproof here. It can always creep in, a virus is a virus, right? But I think our guys have done such a good job. We’re not perfect, but I think we’ve been very diligent. So yeah, I was surprised.”

Reich said he has situational discussions with Ballard each week.

“I think Chris has done an outstanding job with the organization in many respects and with the team, but I just think we’ve tried to stay on top of it,” he said. “Our players, every time we talk to them about it, the handful of times that we remind them or talk to them, you can tell. You know when you’re upfront and you get their heads down like, ‘Please, are you telling it?’ That’s not been the case. Guys know this is serious business and we’re trying to do our part.”

So although Friday turned out to be a disconcerting deviation in routine, everything worked out. Months of continual discussion about how to respond helped the team in a troublesome time.

“I think we’ve talked through all the scenarios,” Reich said. “We’ve been talking through them for a while. It’s hard to know what all the scenarios are because everything is so new. We’ve never faced anything like this before. We just have the different pieces in place, the different pieces to the puzzle to know how the mechanics work if we have to do virtual meetings and that kind of stuff.”

(Phillip B. Wilson has covered the Indianapolis Colts for more than two decades and authored the 2013 book 100 Things Colts Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die. He’s on Twitter @pwilson24, on Facebook at @allcoltswithphilb and @100thingscoltsfans, and his email is phillipbwilson24@yahoo.com.)