Getty Indianapolis Colts head coach Frank Reich was highly complimentary of Matt Ryan after his 34th career fourth-quarter comeback.
Frank Reich knows a thing or two about a comeback. While the Indianapolis Colts head coach only won 5 regular season games as a starting quarterback during his playing career, Reich orchestrated 3 fourth-quarter comebacks, including the largest comeback in NFL postseason history.
On September 25, Matt Ryan recorded his 35th career fourth-quarterback comeback in a 20-17 win against the Kansas City Chiefs.
Even having completed fourth-quarterback comebacks himself, Reich couldn’t have been any more impressed with Ryan and the early impact the quarterback has made with the Colts.
“The guy is – you cannot faze him. I’ve been around a lot of great ones, but as far as guys that are on to the next play, Matt is as good – he’s certainly as good as anybody I’ve been around,” Reich told the media during his postgame press conference. “There are some other guys, you know, the Peyton Mannings of the world, but Matt Ryan is unflappable. The guy is unflappable.
“It’s not always going to be pretty, but we bounced back.”
The ‘Unflappable’ Matt Ryan
After the loss to Jacksonville in Week 2, the scuttlebutt around the Colts was how the team doesn’t look any different than last season — the big offseason moves, including trading for Ryan, did not result in any tangible change.
That narrative resurfaced again on social media during the matchup with the Chiefs. But the difference was Ryan led the Colts on a comeback.
The victory against the Chiefs was Indianapolis’ first comeback win since Week 11 of the 2020 season. Carson Wentz did not lead the Colts to a single fourth-quarter comeback last year.
The win against the Chiefs is an example of why Indianapolis wanted Ryan as their quarterback in 2022.
“It’s 100 percent [what we thought we’d get with Ryan], and this is when you look at over the last few years, we’ve had some moments in the fourth quarter where we just didn’t make some plays like we made today to win a game,” Reich said. “It doesn’t matter that there were some ugly series or there were a couple fumbles and at times the protection wasn’t what it should be, and it wasn’t only on – they had some pressures.
“I’ve got to look at all the film on why, and we’ll get that cleaned up, but Matt [Ryan], like I said, the guy is unflappable.”
Matty Ice Leads Colts to First Victory of 2022
It’s hard to state how important this win was for Indianapolis. Had the Colts lost, they would have entered Week 4 as 1 of just 3 winless teams in the NFL.
Instead, the Colts are 1 of 28 teams (as of September 26) with either 1 or 2 wins. At 1-1-1, they are right in the thick of things in the AFC.
Indianapolis can probably count on more game-winning drives this season. Ryan has led the NFL in game-winning drives twice during his 15-year career and had 4 of them last season. He already has 2 fourth-quarterback comebacks this season, which is the most in the league through 3 weeks.
After beating the Chiefs, Ryan credited his ability to orchestrate a comeback to his undying faith that a game is never over until the clock hits zero.
“I just have this belief in myself and in the guys around us, and there’s an internal confidence that’s there, and just regardless of how games shake out, I’ve just seen it too many times where you just give yourself a chance, and at the end you can find a way,” Ryan told the media in his postgame press conference. “Now, we would love it to be different than it was today, and we certainly had opportunities to come away with more points than we did, but there’s always time, and there’s always time left on the clock, and there’s a belief that I’m going to make a play.”