Andy Reid is one of the best to ever do it. With his Kansas City Chiefs beating the Houston Texans in the Divisional Round, he now has 300 NFL victories as a head coach, cementing his spot as an all-time great in professional sports.
How did we get here, you ask? Let’s break it down alphabetically and then lyrically, giving him the type of unique nod he deserves.
Andy Reid Wins His 300th Game as a Head Coach
A is for Arizona: Reid’s first game as an NFL head coach came against the Arizona Cardinals, and it’s safe to say the two have gone in different directions. Since Reid joined the Chiefs, their worst season featured nine regular season wins, while the Cards have averaged 7.6 wins per season over that stretch.
B is for BYU: Reid’s alma mater and a football program that won its first bowl game in 1980, his senior year.
C is for CCC: Reid enters the 300-win club (Roman numerals: CCC), a room that only George Halas, Bill Belichick, and Don Shula occupy.
D is for Dynasty: The Chiefs are looking to represent the AFC in the Super Bowl for the fifth time in six seasons and give us the NFL’s first three-peat.
E is for Eagles: Reid’s first head coaching gig was with the Philadelphia Eagles, a career that didn’t exactly start with a bang — his first game on the sideline saw his team jump out to a 21-0 lead and lose.
F is for Four: That first game was just the start. Reid’s head coaching career opened with four consecutive losses, with his Eagles being outscored 86-44 across those games.
MORE: NFL Head Coach Wins
G is for Green Bay: Mike Holmgren was the man who gave Reid his first NFL break, and it happened to be the same year Brett Favre joined the team.
H is for High Floor: Kansas City has ended each regular season with Reid with at least nine wins. That 12-season streak is double that of the Buffalo Bills, the team with the second-longest active such streak.
I is for Insights: The man with all the answers is never short on sharing an insight or two following a big moment:
Andy Reid's going to get the biggest cheeseburger he can find, might make it a double pic.twitter.com/BjTeYvtPsb
— CJ Fogler 🫡 (@cjzero) February 3, 2020
J is for John Harbaugh: Reid elected to hold onto Harbaugh in 1999 and he’s thrived ever since (the third-most regular season wins since 2019 with the offense that has scored the most points over that stretch).
K is for Kelce: Jason Kelce credits a draft day phone call from Reid for sparking his NFL career while Travis Kelce hasn’t been shy in putting his coach atop the all-time list when discussing the best in the profession.
L is for ‘Like a good neighbor’: Reid has never been one to take himself too seriously and the State Farm ads are as good an example of that as anything. Oh, and his Chiefs own the best home record since 2018, so he’s been pretty good when it comes to “insuring” that Kansas City’s loyal fans leave Arrowhead happy.
M is for Mahomes: There are two QBs in NFL history with a 5,000-yard and 50-touchdown season on their résumé. One is Peyton Manning after 14 years of NFL experience and four MVP awards. The other is Patrick Mahomes in Starts No. 2-17 of his career under the watchful eye of Reid.
N is for “Never underestimate”: Reid has repeatedly encouraged those around the game to “never underestimate the power of an adjustment at halftime.” Forget halftime, adjustments in general have been the calling card of Reid and his 22-4 post-bye week record. Give him time to plan and/or film to react to and he will churn out victories, it really has been that simple.
O is for Offense+: Our Offense+ database goes back to 2019, and Reid’s Chiefs have three of the top-12 regular season performances. How high is the bar? This team (excluding Week 18 with backups) led the league in third-down conversion rate and plays per drive this regular season — a year in which many pundits wondered aloud if this team has what it takes to three-peat. Reid’s “down” season is one most coaches dream of building a career on.
P is for Doug Pederson: Before Patrick was Pederson, Reid’s first starting quarterback as a head coach. He never panned out, but in his first game with Reid as his coach, 16.7% of his completions resulted in a touchdown (career rate outside of that game: 3.6%).
Q is for Quotes: The chicken nugget quotes never get old, but Reid has been the source of some of the most impactful football sayings over the years. “Preparation beats talent when talent fails to prepare,” and, “Adjustments are not a sign of weakness; they are a sign of strategy,” are two of my personal favorites.
R is for Rapid improvement: The Eagles totaled nine wins in the two seasons before they hired Reid — they averaged 11 wins and made a Super Bowl appearance during his first six seasons at the helm.
S is for Super Bowls: Reid is two wins away from his fourth Lombardi Trophy and the league’s first three-peat. This season, his Chiefs have overcome various injuries and not missed a beat.
T is for Taylor Swift: Ego has led to the downfall of greatness across history and it would have been easy for Kansas City to crumble with the increased microscope that has come with a cultural icon being around them consistently. Instead, they’ve embraced all of it and have used the attention to further the game as a whole as opposed to letting derail a historic run.
U is for Underdog: Under Mahomes, the Chiefs have won 73.3% of their games when labeled as an underdog, just a touch above the league rate for teams not led by Mahomes (32.7%) over that stretch.
V is for Value: Are you old enough to remember when the Las Vegas Raiders (or Oakland?) or Cleveland Browns were feared franchises? I’m not — both of those teams (along with 27 others) had a higher win percentage than the Chiefs from 2007-12, their six seasons before hiring Reid to right the ship.
X is for Xavier Worthy: Eight years after John Ross was drafted and flamed out as a pure burner, Reid bet on the infrastructure he’s built in Kansas City and drafted Xavier Worthy, the NFL Combine‘s fastest man. He’s moved the uniquely gifted athlete around the formation and is now a feared part of this offense that is already a threat that Ross never was.
Y is for Youth football: Was I going to go through an entire list without mentioning the most physically imposing video clip of all time? No. No, I was not.
Happy "Andy Reid – Punt, Pass, and Kick" Day!
December 13, 1971 pic.twitter.com/ZmBELBuIkq
— Kevin Gallagher (@KevG163) December 13, 2023
Z is for Zig Zag: Reid encourages his players to draw up plays and nothing is off the table. “Ring Around the Rosie” play structure? Book it. Designed laterals? Why not? For some, this would be considered reckless. For Reid, it speaks to the freedom his players have to be themselves and just how valuable that can be in a league where everyone is hyper-talented and the margins are so thin.
Reid Win No. 300, Rap Edition
Reid is so much more than victories. He’s elevated a franchise, made us smile, and challenged the “Bill Belichick way” when it comes to dominating the sport that this country cares most about. In honor of that, I’d like to offer you an alternative way of digesting the notes above:
- It all started with a game against the ARIZONA Cardinals, Reid’s debut as an HC.
- The BYU alum got his career rolling, it wasn’t a smooth start, not a Jimmy 3
- But here we are, CCC, in club-300 with Don Shula, Bill Belichick, and George Halas
- In the midst of a DYNASTY, dispatching of opponents with callous
- Blew a 21-point lead in Game 1 with the EAGLES in the City of Brotherly Love, long before the shove
- FOUR losses before a win, today his job would be in question for not fitting like a glove
- His sideline career began in GREEN Bay, but Big Head wasn’t meant to be a Cheesehead
- He developed a HIGH floor in KC, legacy questions very much put to bed
- INSIGHTS aplenty, “I’m going to get the biggest cheeseburger I can find, might be a double”
- A title for JOHN Harbaugh, the coaching tree is expanding and it’s trouble
- From Jason to Travis, the Reid resume has a certain feel, a KELCE connection
- LIKE a good neighbor, he’s kept Arrowhead safe, call it house protection
- Patrick MAHOMES embraces the creativity, always on time with a dime
- Stop him for two quarters if you’re lucky, “NEVER underestimate the power of an adjustment at halftime.
- The Chiefs have three of the top-12 regular seasons in terms of OFFENSE+
- Doug PEDERSON was his first QB1, he of Philly Philly fame, a call that seemed pretty suss
- Reid was smiling, his QUOTE coming true that “preparation beats talent when talent fails to prepare”
- He’s parlayed that thought into RAPID improvement, franchise struggles vanishing into thin air
- The chase is one, we might only be a few weeks from SUPER Bowl title number four
- Channeling their TAYLOR Swift, embracing yet another call for an encore
- With Mahomes calling the shots, Reid has won 11 of 15 as an UNDERDOG outright
- The VALUE he’s added from the sidelines cannot be overstated, reward fan bases that stood tight
- Opponents dying hard comes with the territory given that Reid and Bruce WILLIS share a birthday
- The chess master is scheming, it seems inevitable that XAVIER Worthy is coming with a big play
- It won’t shock, but it’ll be unstoppable, something like YOUTH football Reid during Punt Pass and Kick
- Maybe a go route, maybe a ZIG when the defense is expecting zag, something slick
Congratulations on win No. 300 — and maybe two more
Not a coach in this era inspires more confidence when a team needs a score!
