One thing I love doing is watching coaches do their job. Particularly football coaches. I am fortunate to have a great gig coaching junior high football and assisting with the high school where I teach, but the reality is that relatively speaking, I am a novice when it comes to the coaching game. Because of this, I try to study other coaches to learn from their successes and failures. This mostly pertains to other high school and some small college coaches because that level pertains much more to me than the NFL. But one guy I love watching, and I mean absolutely marvel at, is Big Red himself, Andrew Walter Reid.
What I would like to do in this article is share the observations I have about Andy Reid and why I think his Chiefs teams have been so successful (really since he got there but especially) the last three seasons. Now, my qualifications to speak on this are non-existent and my insight into the Chiefs organization is not greater than your average couch-dweller. So take whatever I have to say as you may, but I hope that there is something valuable about a peon coach observing one of the game’s greatest coaches.
Cultivating Culture
Any coach will tell you, so much so that it is very much a cliche, culture in a sports program matters. Perhaps the most unique thing about the Chiefs organization is the culture that has been built. This is most evident in how Kansas City’s players behave differently than the rest of the league.
What you have in Kansas City, especially on the offensive side of the ball, is certainly the most talented team in football. Historically speaking, when you get an outlandish amount of talent on one professional sports team, it creates friction because everyone is used to and still believes they should get the ball a lot, have recognition, be the top guy, etc. Additionally, these “top guys” often have exuberant personalities and there is usually a correlation between exuberant personality and diva behavior. And while the Chiefs have a lot of the former, there seems to be virtually none of the ladder.
While some credit must be given to the individual players who are ultimately responsible for their behavior, at least partial credit must be given to Reid. There simply can’t be behavior like that under Reid. Perhaps he has simply learned over time from experience (thinking Terrell Owens in Philly) and perhaps it’s his own personality bleeding into his players’ but the fact is, Reid’s locker room management is better than anybody’s.
Perhaps this is most on display in the transformation of Travis Kelce. Kelce was drafted during Reid’s first draft as Chiefs head coach. If you recall, for the first several years of his career Kelce did lots of idiotic things on the field, many of which resulted in unsportsmanlike conduct penalties and the occasional ejection. Reid, who is not overly fiery on the spectrum of coaches, never let one slide. It made a big difference. In the last three years, Kelce’s antics have declined sharply and his production has increased dramatically. While Kelce still has the same exuberant personality, his behavior has changed for the better. While this is a microcosm, I think it paints a good picture of how Reid handles his players.
Ownership Increases Output
One thing that seems to be true about NFL head coaches is that they seem to think they’re pretty smart. While this usually is true, a potentially harmful outcome is that it inhibits collaboration between the head coach and other coaches and players. Andy Reid is the best offensive mind in football, yet he is arguably the most collaborative with those he works with.
Some of the best stories I have read talk about how Reid will take ideas for plays from players and dedicate practice time to workshopping those ideas. Doing this shows those that play for Reid that their ideas are valuable to him. An inevitable consequence of this is a greater likelihood Reid’s players will do everything he asks. Reid and offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy (who has been the best head coaching candidate in the NFL for the last two cycles but has not been hired because the NFL is inherently racist with head coach hires) implement these ideas where they can, and speaking from experience*, this simply makes things go better. When you have ownership in something you are going to hurt more when it goes poorly, and feel better when it goes well.
*Shout out to Ben Shifflett, Blake Shifflett, and Riley Holstine for drawing up Pterodactyl Right and to Coach Messer for letting us run it in a JV game when I was a sophomore. For what it’s worth, it scored a touchdown. And not to bring my sour grapes here, but like usual, I was wide open in the end zone and Ben opted to not throw it to me.
Playing the Part
One thing that really bugs me about NFL head coaches is how seriously they take themselves. They say the same old vague and meaningless garbage in every presser every day. “We just have to get out there and do our jobs” “We’re just taking it one game at a time” “At the end of the day we just have to get better.” It’s super annoying. Say something interesting for once. Enter Andy Reid. I believe this is another way in which he differentiates himself from the rest of the crop.
Andy Reid has become somewhat of a caricature. Football fans see him first as the big, burger-eating, Tommy Bahama shirt-wearing, HOW BOUT THOSE CHIEFS-yelling, funny guy. This has happened for two reasons. One is that the media and fans have portrayed him this way, but the second, and much more influential, is that Reid has allowed himself to be portrayed this way. Some may say this is just Reid being laid back and being who he really is. While this may be partially true, I also believe it to be a very calculated and ingenious move by Reid.
If you look at his past, Reid was not always this way. When in Philadelphia, Reid was much more the serious straight man than he is today. I think even when he first arrived in Kansas City he was more serious than he comes off as now. However, the change has happened over time, especially within the last five years. So why the timing? Up until his Super Bowl victory a year ago, the pressure to win grew greater each year. How did he seem to get more laid back several seasons before that happened?
*Warning; the following paragraph contains reckless speculation about a man’s intentions written by another man that has never spoken to the subject man*
Speaking as a coach, it is logical to me that Reid saw that the best way to get more out of his players was to be on their level. It is logical that he understood if you want your team to be humble, you must first humble yourself. Most NFL coaches have been grinding the nuts and bolts of the game of football for so long that they lose sight of the principles of how to lead and motivate people. This is probably a mistake that Reid made in his career as well and learned from. So he did what would be unthinkable for most ego-monster head coaches: he made himself a caricature.
Reid is living proof that lowering yourself down to Earth as a leader will make it possible to guide those you are leading to do the same. Again, I cannot speak to exactly what the Chiefs' locker room looks like on a daily basis, but there is no denying that those playing for the Kansas City Chiefs LOVE Andy Reid and playing for him. It is incredibly genuine and evident in every game, interview, soundbite, and piece of Chiefs football that the average joe can consume.
You can’t fake love. You can’t fake joy. What Andy Reid has done, with the help of his players and the rest of the organization, is cultivate a culture of true love, joy, and relationship in a league that those things seem rare. To me the proof is in the pudding when Sammy Watkins signed his contract, taking less than he could have gotten elsewhere, and said, “It’s not all about the money, this is my happy place.” Uncoincidentally, it happens to be the happy place for a long-deprived Chiefs fan base.
I love Big Red. I’d love to be that guy when I grow up. Go Chiefs. Tom Brady is a system quarterback.
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