On Tuesday, Pro Football Focus rolled out its ranking of the top 10 returning NFL head coaches for the 2025 season. For context, there are 25 returning head coaches in 2025, including Andy Reid of the Kansas City Chiefs.
According to author Dalton Wasserman, Reid tops his list of 10:
1. Andy Reid, Kansas City Chiefs
Like Bill Belichick, Tom Brady and the New England Patriots teams before them, the Kansas City Chiefs are the masters of situational football. The Chiefs played in 12 one-score games last season, including the playoffs, and won all of them. They found a way to reach the Super Bowl for the third straight season because Andy Reid has his entire team prepared for any situation.
The Chiefs ranked 17th in PFF offensive grade during the first three quarters of games but slotted into fourth in that same category in the fourth quarter and overtime. They simply find ways to step up their game despite their flaws, injuries and lack of explosiveness. That’s a testament to Reid’s levelheaded approach to the game and wealth of experience.
My take
With Belichick out of the league, Reid deserves his flowers as the top returning head coach. Regardless of how Super Bowl LIX played out, Reid has pushed the Chiefs to the playoffs in all but one season (2014) since he arrived in Kansas City in 2013. He has also guided the club to seven straight AFC Championship games, five Super Bowl appearances and three championships.
Before I proceed with some quick thoughts on the rest of the list, I would like to address my concern regarding the Associated Press (AP) NFL Coach of the Year award.
We don’t have to do a year-by-year breakdown of Reid’s 26 seasons as a head coach to know that he should have more than one such trophy (2002). As it stands, the “Coach of the Year” ought to be called “Breakout Coach of the Year” or “Newcomer of the Year.” A solution could reflect just that — award your newer coach of a surprise playoff team with a “Breakout” award, and give the actual best coach the “Best Coach” award.
By now, you know that I prefer years of consistency against whoever was sexy last year. For me, that would be Mike Tomlin (listed No. 5), John Harbaugh (listed No. 4) and Kyle Shanahan (listed No. 7) from rankings No. 2 to No. 4. Nick Sirianni (listed No. 8) would round out my top five.
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