A less patient organization might have given up on Andy Reid

Andy Reid of the Kansas City Chiefs will enter Super Bowl week widely renowned as the NFL’s best current head coach. Should the two-time defending champion Chiefs complete the first-ever “threepeat” at Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans next weekend, he will have a case to be considered the best coach in league history.

Now in his 12th season on the Kansas City sidelines, this will be Reid’s fifth Super Bowl appearance in the last six seasons. However, if the Chiefs were a less patient organization, the unparalleled success might not have happened.

The Chiefs hired Reid in 2013, almost immediately after he was fired from the Philadelphia Eagles after 14 seasons. Dividends were quickly realized as Kansas City went from a 2-14 record in 2012 that netted them the number one overall selection in the 2013 NFL Draft to an 11-5 mark in Reid’s first season, ending with a Wild Card playoff loss.

2014 brought heavy expectations to build on the unexpected quick success, but the Chiefs finished with a middling 9-7 record in what so far has been Reid’s only season in Kansas City without a playoff berth.

A year later, the wheels appeared to be completely falling off. After a season-opening victory over the Houston Texans, the Chiefs stumbled to a five-game losing streak. To make matters worse, superstar running back Jamaal Charles was lost to a torn ACL in Week 5.

Current Chiefs offensive coordinator Matt Nagy was the team’s quarterbacks coach during the 2015 season. While speaking to the media on Friday, Nagy discussed that trying season.

“I do remember that time,” he recalled, “and I remember thinking, man, you know, this isn’t it. We came here in 2013, and we started out I think it was either 9-0 or 9-1 that first year that we were here. Then a few years later, here we are, and we’re 1-5. One thing it taught me as a coach — just watching coach Reid go through that — was he relied on his coaching staff.

“He relied on his players on staying true to each other, being real, being honest, but also not panicking, and just kind of riding the peaks and valleys. So, there’s been a lot of good here in the last however many years, but you go back to that stretch, and you think about that. It can take you to places where you start wondering, ‘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 reputation in Philadelphia as a great regular-season head coach, but he was also seen as less capable in the playoffs. The Eagles came up short four times in the NFC Championship round during his tenure, and Reid was on the losing side of Super Bowl XXXIX against the New England Patriots in his lone opportunity at the sport’s biggest stage.

As the 2015 Chiefs stumbled to 1-5, many expected the slump to be the beginning of the end for Reid’s place among football’s best 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 quickly answered the questions about his reign. Starting in Week 7, the 2015 Chiefs won ten consecutive games, achieving their second 11-5 record and playoff appearance in three seasons.

In the coach’s second postseason opportunity in Kansas City, the Chiefs opened the 2015-16 playoffs with a 30-0 destruction of the Texans. The win — which remains the NFL’s most recent postseason shutout — ended Kansas City’s then eight-game playoff losing streak dating back almost 22 years.

Nagy — the Eagles’ offensive quality control coach from 2011-12 — admits that the disappointing start in 2015 reminded him of the end of Reid’s days in Philadelphia. He knows that not every staff gets the opportunity to turn things around.

“I think the million-dollar question is which way does it go?” he pondered. “And do you get to this point? It’s one of those things where I was in Philadelphia with Coach Reid towards the end of his career there, the last three years for him. I missed out all those quote unquote ‘good years’ in Philly, and then I caught the back end — and then 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 noted that the reasons for a slump like 2015 are often complex (and ultimately fruitless) to attempt to diagnose. He sees Reid’s patient approach as the best remedy.

“The biggest thing is that when you lose some games, and you have a losing streak, it’s hard,” he explained. “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.”