All the Reich moves

It's OK this time, Colts people. I checked. Bill Belichick did not leave any beguiling monotone messages on Frank Reich's phone.

And so all's well that ends well, as the Colts announced the signing of Reich as their next head coach. The key word, of course, is "signing." They waited until their man actually put pen to paper before announcing Reich was coming, because the Josh McDaniels episode taught them that just because a guy says he's coming doesn't mean he actually is.

Sometimes people change their minds. Who knew.

Reich, though, did not, and if the New England Patriots thought they were engaging in a little payback by snatching back McDaniels at the eleventh hour ... well, the joke's on them. They might have been snickering behind their hands a week ago, but now it's the Colts snickering behind their hands, because they got the guy they should have hired to begin with.

And the best part is they have the Patriots to thank for it. Snicker, snicker. Here's your decorative thank-you bouquet, Robert Kraft, all done up in tasteful blue and white.

McDaniels, after all, was the Big Get who looked less Big and less like a Get the more you looked at him. His crash-and-burn in his last head coaching job in Denver, of course, is well documented. Ditto the fact that his allegedly brilliant offensive mind was clearly augmented by having the greatest quarterback in NFL history to execute his schemes. As the Blob noted a week ago, even Charlie Weis looked like a genius with Tom Brady at the controls.

Without him ... well, Weis went on to go 35-27 at Notre Dame and 6-22 at Kansas as a college head coach. Not a precedent that speaks well for McDaniels, who already has his own sketchy precedent.

And Frank Reich?

Frank Reich helped turn a rookie quarterback from North Dakota State (Carson Wentz) into a likely league MVP until Wentz went down with a knee injury. Then he helped turn journeyman Nick Foles into Super Bowl MVP Nick Foles. The Eagles' offense, meanwhile, went from 22nd in the league to seventh this year.

An added attraction: Reich knows his way around Indy, serving as the Colts; quarterbacks coach in 2009-10 and receivers coach in 2011.

He went on to coach receivers at Arizona and the quarterbacks at San Diego. Which means he's coached both Peyton Manning and Philip Rivers. Which means he's got plenty of experience coaching marquee QBs, and that will no doubt help now that Andrew Luck is his presumptive quarterback.

Remember last Monday, when the Colts thought they had their guy?

Turns out they were right. They were just off by a week.