A much less affected person group may need given up on Andy Reid

Andy Reid of the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs will enter Tremendous Bowl week broadly famend because the NFL’s finest present head coach. Ought to the two-time defending champion Chiefs full the first-ever “threepeat” at Tremendous Bowl LIX in New Orleans subsequent weekend, he may have a case to be thought-about the very best coach in league historical past.

Now in his twelfth season on the Kansas Metropolis sidelines, this will likely be Reid’s fifth Tremendous Bowl look within the final six seasons. Nevertheless, if the Chiefs had been a much less affected person group, the unparalleled success won’t have occurred.

The Chiefs employed Reid in 2013, nearly instantly after he was fired from the Philadelphia Eagles after 14 seasons. Dividends had been shortly realized as Kansas Metropolis went from a 2-14 report in 2012 that netted them the primary total choice within the 2013 NFL Draft to an 11-5 mark in Reid’s first season, ending with a Wild Card playoff loss.

2014 introduced heavy expectations to construct on the surprising fast success, however the Chiefs completed with a middling 9-7 report in what to this point has been Reid’s solely season in Kansas Metropolis with out a playoff berth.

A 12 months later, the wheels gave the impression to be fully falling off. After a season-opening victory over the Houston Texans, the Chiefs stumbled to a five-game shedding streak. To make issues worse, celebrity working again Jamaal Charles was misplaced to a torn ACL in Week 5.

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Present Chiefs offensive coordinator Matt Nagy was the crew’s quarterbacks coach throughout the 2015 season. Whereas talking to the media on Friday, Nagy mentioned that attempting season.

“I do remember that time,” he recalled, “and I bear in mind considering, man, you already know, this isn’t it. We got here right here in 2013, and we began out I believe it was both 9-0 or 9-1 that first 12 months that we had been right here. Then a couple of years later, right here we’re, and we’re 1-5. One factor it taught me as a coach — simply watching coach Reid undergo that — was he relied on his teaching employees.

“He relied on his gamers on staying true to one another, being actual, being trustworthy, but in addition not panicking, and simply sort of driving the peaks and valleys. So, there’s been numerous good right here within the final nonetheless a few years, however you return to that stretch, and you consider that. It may possibly take you to locations the place you begin questioning, ‘OK, are we doing the right thing — and do we need to make any changes?’

“What I learned as a coach, just I remember very clearly that Coach Reid stood his ground. He stuck with the guys, he stuck with his coaches, he stuck with the scheme, and we fought through it.”

Reid had a popularity in Philadelphia as a fantastic regular-season head coach, however he was additionally seen as much less succesful within the playoffs. The Eagles got here up quick 4 occasions within the NFC Championship spherical throughout his tenure, and Reid was on the shedding facet of Tremendous Bowl XXXIX towards the New England Patriots in his lone alternative on the sport’s largest stage.

Because the 2015 Chiefs stumbled to 1-5, many anticipated the droop to be the start of the tip for Reid’s place amongst soccer’s finest minds. Jeffri Chadiha wrote for NFL.com…

“This is starting to feel a little different in Kansas City. Reid is starting to look less like the man who made Philadelphia a perennial contender and more like yet another talented head coach who can’t duplicate his success with a second franchise (a group that includes George Seifert, Mike Shanahan and Dennis Green). It’s also becoming harder to recall the good vibes that followed Reid to Kansas City, when he arrived as a savior blessed with both experience and answers. Sadly, as this season continues on, he’s only creating more questions about his current reign moving forward.”

Reid shortly answered the questions on his reign. Beginning in Week 7, the 2015 Chiefs received ten consecutive video games, reaching their second 11-5 report and playoff look in three seasons.

Within the coach’s second postseason alternative in Kansas Metropolis, the Chiefs opened the 2015-16 playoffs with a 30-0 destruction of the Texans. The win — which stays the NFL’s most up-to-date postseason shutout — ended Kansas Metropolis’s then eight-game playoff shedding streak relationship again nearly 22 years.

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Nagy — the Eagles’ offensive high quality management coach from 2011-12 — admits that the disappointing begin in 2015 reminded him of the tip of Reid’s days in Philadelphia. He is aware of that not each employees will get the chance to show issues round.

“I think the million-dollar question is which way does it go?” he contemplated. “And do you get up to now? It’s a type of issues the place I used to be in Philadelphia with Coach Reid in the direction of the tip of his profession there, the final three years for him. I missed out all these quote unquote ‘good years’ in Philly, after which I caught the again finish — after which we get fired.

“We come here, and three years later, we’re kind of going through it again. It just speaks to the consistency and the belief that ownership has — the transition of everybody from top down and just people sticking together.”

Nagy famous that the explanations for a droop like 2015 are sometimes advanced (and in the end fruitless) to try to diagnose. He sees Reid’s affected person method as the very best treatment.

“The biggest thing is that when you lose some games, and you have a losing streak, it’s hard,” he defined. “It’s hard to figure out why you’re doing it. Sometimes, it becomes paralysis by analysis, but Coach Reid’s the best at fixing it.”