MIAMI (AP) -Frank Reich will be forever known as the quarterback who led Buffalo back from a 35-3 deficit to beat the Houston Oilers in a 1993 playoff game. Some also remember him as the engineer of one of the best college comebacks ever, rallying Maryland from 31-0 down to beat Miami 42-40 in 1984.
Peyton Manning just wants him to be known as a Super Bowl champion.
Reich is Manning’s quarterbacks coach with the Indianapolis Colts, essentially making him the primary sounding board for the reigning NFL MVP.
“It’s been a great journey,” Reich said. “When I decided to get back into football, the first call I made was to Bill Polian and thankfully he just opened the door.”
From there, everything fell into place.
Reich pursued some other jobs, but when Tony Dungy retired as the Colts’ head coach and Jim Caldwell got promoted to the top spot, that opened a slot on the Indianapolis staff. Now here he is, back at the Super Bowl that the Bills could never win when he was Jim Kelly’s backup in western New York.
mentor-type coach, if you will, to Jim Kelly throughout the majority of his career and then when called upon to play, going in and leading one of the greatest comebacks of all time,” Manning said. “At this point in my career, being a veteran, I like having somebody that’s played longer than me.”
Manning said Reich is constantly working, and they often get into late-night texting sessions, telling each other to check out certain plays from past games because a certain coverage might be something worth studying.
“I like that. I like a guy that’s constantly got football on his mind and thinking about helping me,” Manning said. “I’m grateful for that kind of effort. But I lean on Frank, I ask him a lot of questions and he’s very comforting to me.”
Reich started with the Colts through an internship program for former players and impressed the staff in Indianapolis right away, eventually landing a job a year later.
“He developed a real strong relationship with Peyton,” Caldwell said. “And so it made the decision quite easy.”
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A PAT FROM PATERNO: Jim Caldwell has a staff of 16 assistant coaches, plus a deep supply of friends and confidants who helped him steer the Indianapolis Colts into the Super Bowl.
Count JoePa among those who got Caldwell off to a great start.
wide receivers coach in 1986.
In many ways, Penn State was Caldwell’s big coaching break. During his time with the Nittany Lions, he worked with Kerry Collins when he was considered college football’s top quarterback, and worked his way up the ranks to passing game coordinator, plus was part of a national championship.
By the time Caldwell left Penn State, he was ready for a head coaching gig, which Wake Forest gave him in 1993. Caldwell worked for some other top-notch college coaches as well – Howard Schnellenberger and Bill McCartney among them – but Paterno’s lessons still resonate today.
“I worked for him for seven years and I think he’s one of the finest teachers in the game,” Caldwell said.
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FAMILY AFFAIR: Reggie Bush’s celebrity girlfriend and her family are doing their superstitious best to help the Saints running back in the Super Bowl.
Kim Kardashian’s stepfather, Olympic gold medalist Bruce Jenner, said she will be joined in Miami by her mother, Kris, and brother, Rob – the same group that attended the NFC playoff game when Bush scored on an 83-yard punt return and a spectacular 46-yard run in a 45-14 win over the Arizona Cardinals.
“That combination seems to be working,” Jenner said Wednesday in New York while promoting a campaign to raise awareness for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.
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oned around the world, including those deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. New Orleans fullback Kyle Eckel said he’ll think of those servicemen and servicewomen on Sunday.
The military remains in Eckel’s mind, and that makes sense considering he played for Navy before embarking on his NFL career.
“They’ve got the hardest job in the world,” Eckel said. “Sometimes it might seem thankless, but I hope they know that’s not true. I hope they know that guys like me and guys here appreciate it every single day.”
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GOT MILK?: Only one of them will get a Super Bowl ring. There is one thing, however, that Reggie Bush and Reggie Wayne will both have this week.
Milk.
Bush and Wayne are their respective teams’ representatives in the annual pre-Super Bowl “Got Milk?” ad, which will be released nationally on Friday with both stars posing with the milk mustache.
On Monday, only one gets a second ad – the one from the winning team.
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