Frank Reich is officially the New York Jets’ offensive coordinator.
Like the hire or not, it’s time for fans and analysts to start learning about Reich’s philosophies and schematic tendencies, so we can better understand the team’s offensive vision and which types of players might fit into it.
There are countless directions we can take our analysis of an offensive coach and his strategies. How does he prefer to sequence plays as a play-caller? What are his priorities in game-planning? What are his overarching philosophies on what makes an offense successful? What specific techniques does he focus on coaching up in practice?
We will surely dive into many of those questions surrounding Reich over the next few months at Jets X-Factor. No single article can tell you everything there is to know about a football coach. Each aspect of his profile demands thorough examination.
Today, we’re going to focus on a particular personnel package that has stood out as Reich’s favorite throughout his last few coaching stops. It remains to be seen whether he will maintain his reliance on this package in New York, but considering how consistently he used it across his previous stops, there is a good chance that it will be just as much of a mainstay in New York.
Jets fans, get familiar with 11 personnel.
Frank Reich and 11 personnel
The “11 personnel” package features a skill-position grouping of 1 running back, 1 tight end, and 3 wide receivers.
The name comes from the number of running backs (first digit) and tight ends (second digit), while the remaining eligibles are wide receivers. For instance, 21 personnel includes 2 running backs and 1 tight end (two wide receivers), while 12 personnel includes 1 running back and 2 tight ends (two wide receivers).
11 personnel has become the bread-and-butter offensive package in the modern NFL. In the 2025 season, it was the most-used package for every NFL team except the Baltimore Ravens, according to SumerSports. League-wide, it was used on 57% of offensive plays.
So, it is far from unusual to see a team using 11 personnel on the majority of its plays. Every NFL fan sees the package hundreds of times each Sunday.
Reich, though, tends to rely on this package to an even higher degree than most coaches.
In 2023, Reich’s Panthers finished second in the league with an 87% usage rate of 11 personnel. Only Sean McVay’s Rams used it more often (95%).
In 2022, Reich’s Colts ranked third in the same category, using 11 personnel on 77% of their offensive plays.
It is worth noting that Reich was fired mid-season in each of those years; unfortunately, the data cannot be filtered by weeks. However, the roster and playbook were his handiwork, so it’s reasonable to attribute the entire season to him.
Back in 2021, his last full season in charge of an NFL offense, Reich was not quite as dependent on 11 personnel, but he still used it often. The Colts ranked 14th with a 64% usage rate.
Reich used 11 personnel at least 60% of the time in all four of his full seasons as the Colts’ head coach. He used it 69% of the time in 2020 (9th), 62% of the time in 2019 (16th), and 72% of the time in 2018 (6th).
Here is the complete history of Reich’s 11 personnel reliance as far back as this data is available:
- 2023 (Panthers, fired mid-season): 87% (2nd)
- 2022 (Colts, fired mid-season): 77% (3rd)
- 2021 (Colts): 64% (14th)
- 2020 (Colts): 69% (9th)
- 2019 (Colts): 62% (16th)
- 2018 (Colts): 72% (6th)
That’s six consecutive seasons in which Reich’s teams used 11 personnel at least 62% of the time, which is 5% above the 2025 league average (57%). On average, Reich’s last six teams had an 11 personnel usage rate of 72%, representing nearly one-quarter of the plays.
What does it mean for the Jets?
Compared to their 2025 season under Tanner Engstrand, this would not be a drastic shift for the Jets.
In 2025, New York used 11 personnel on 67% of their plays, which ranked third-highest behind the Buccaneers (69%) and Titans (70%). That’s not a massive departure from Reich’s career average of 72% across his last six seasons, although if Reich sticks with his 2023 number in Carolina (87%), the shift would certainly be substantial.
It’s worth wondering, though, whether 11 personnel is what the Jets truly wanted to be their bread-and-butter under Engstrand. Their frequent usage of the package might not be an accurate indicator of what they were really trying to build.
Engstrand hailed from a Lions offense that was built around heavier personnel packages. With Engstrand as their pass game coordinator in 2024, the Lions ranked 23rd with a 55% usage rate of 11 personnel. Detroit ranked top-10 in both 12 personnel usage rate (29%, 9th) and 13 personnel usage rate (4%, 10th).
The Lions loved to go heavy on early downs and run the football behind their tight ends. With enough blocking and rushing talent to run the ball successfully on first and second down, they built an extremely successful play-action pass game off a run game that opponents had to respect.
Based on what we heard throughout the offseason, it seemed the Jets wanted to build their offense with a similar vision. Aaron Glenn touted an old-school, physicality-first approach to the sport, and he complemented that philosophy with the addition of a quarterback in Justin Fields who could contribute in the run game.
However, once the season got underway, we quickly realized that the Jets were, well, a very bad football team. They routinely got into gigantic holes before the offense could establish any sort of ground game. Although their rushing attack was solid (eighth-best in yards per rush attempt), it did not matter, as the Jets often had to enter obvious passing mode in the first quarter.
Once you’re in obvious passing mode, 11 personnel becomes the go-to package. You’re not going to waste your time feigning a run look when the opponent knows you’re passing. You’re going to put at least three receivers on the field every play, trying to move the ball downfield as fast as possible.
That skews your numbers in the personnel package department. After all, the top-ranked team in 11 personnel usage, the Titans, was another 3-14 team.
All signs point to the 2025 Jets truly wishing to be more of a 12 personnel team, despite their final numbers. Remember, they used their first two picks of the 2025 NFL draft on a right tackle and a tight end, while they did not draft a wide receiver until the fourth round. They also extended their TE2, Jeremy Ruckert, in the middle of the season. These are the moves of a team that wants to play the style of football that Detroit became famous for in Engstrand and Glenn’s time with the Lions.
Reich has coached some pretty bad teams in his own right. However, given his consistent reliance on 11 personnel across six consecutive years, and his extreme reliance on it from 2022-23, it seems likely that it is truly a core component of his philosophy.
It makes sense, too. Reich is a former quarterback who came up in the NFL’s coaching ranks with the Indianapolis Colts during Peyton Manning’s heyday. He then worked closely with Philip Rivers in San Diego, followed by two years as the right-hand man of Doug Pederson, an Andy Reid disciple.
With those influences, Reich doesn’t sound like a man who wants to “ground and pound.” He wants to air it out.
Thus, he uses three-receiver sets quite often, and multi-tight end sets are tossed to the wayside.
In all likelihood, Jets fans should expect to see more 11 personnel packages and spread-out formations in 2026 than they did last year, particularly early in the season and early in games, before the scoreboard or the standings skew the Jets toward chucking the ball around with reckless abandon.
In a perfect world, Aaron Glenn’s initial vision was to build upon the offensive model he saw in Detroit. Now, with his job on the line, Glenn seems ready to take a riskier approach. He is putting his offense in the hands of a former NFL quarterback and letting him call the game through his eyes.
Receivers will be on the field over tight ends. Passes will be thrown early and often.
Jets fans are sure glad to hear that. Will those passes be completed for first downs and touchdowns, though? That (mildly important) question will loom until the regular season.
For all the 11 personnel he ran over his last two seasons, Reich’s offenses were pitiful, especially through the air, although it did not help that his quarterbacks were Matt Ryan in his final season and Bryce Young in his first.
It’s not as if the Jets have Andrew Luck waiting for Reich, though. Reich will again be tasked with doing what he could not at his last two stops: find a way to field a quality offense without a star quarterback.
We’ll see whether he can do that, and what strategies he employs to try and pull it off. I can tell you one thing with a high degree of confidence, though: The plan will probably feature a ton of 11 personnel.
That means the Jets had better make sure they find two more starter-quality wideouts to place alongside Garrett Wilson. It was already an obvious goal before, but now that they’ve committed to a coach who will likely want three different receivers playing at least two-thirds of the snaps, it has been upgraded to a downright necessity.
