INDIANAPOLIS — Even amidst the worst of it, while they sat in the league cellar at 1-5, winless for a full month, Frank Reich refused to let the doubt creep in. He’d spent 24 years in this league – 14 as a player, a decade as a coach – shaping and steeling a personal conviction that had, across seven magical days last winter, won him a Super Bowl and delivered him the job he’d always dreamt of.
That conviction? He’d lean on it. He’d live it. Especially at 1-5.
“No man becomes suddenly different from his habit and cherished thought,” Reich would tell himself, leaning on the words of Joshua Chamberlain, the Civil War officer who helped steer Union troops to victory at Gettysburg.