The inclination is to anoint the latest as the greatest, so Andy Reid may be crowned the king of all coaches if the Chiefs three-peat.
Coaches are often judged by how they dominate in windows of time, as Reid is doing. He would be the first coach to win three straight Super Bowls — though Curly Lambeau and Vince Lombardi won three consecutive championships in another time.
If the measure were total championships, Reid wouldn’t be called the greatest. He’s trying to win his fourth. Bill Belichick has the most with six. Lambeau and George Halas also had six in the pre-Super Bowl era, while Lombardi had five, including two Super Bowls. Reid is trying to tie Chuck Noll and Guy Chamberlain.
He also stands fourth all time in victories, 55 behind Don Shula, 43 behind Halas and 29 behind Belichick.
Reid’s accomplishments are impressive — in some ways as impressive as any coach’s. But the most relevant comparisons in measuring his greatness aren’t in rings or records — they are in traits. In Reid, we can see the resiliency of Belichick, the ability to maximize others of Shula, the quarterback mastery of Bill Walsh and Mike Holmgren and the relatability of John Madden.
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Reid has called Belichick arguably the greatest coach ever. Belichick has referred to Reid as “one of the great coaches in this league.” They know because each has studied the other intently.
On Sunday, Reid will surpass Belichick with 45 playoff appearances for the most in history.
In head-to-head competition, Belichick won seven of 12 games, including all three postseason meetings.
Belichick is thornier, but both are more likely to win a game than a press conference. Neither is easily ruffled. Each has an uncanny hold on their equilibrium.
Thoroughness is a hallmark of both, and it shows in game management.
They are masters of opposite sides of the ball, strategical savants. No coach has been better than Belichick at exposing an opponent’s offensive weakness or neutralizing what the enemy does best. Reid, meanwhile, elevates his offensive players with imaginative design, master chess moves in the red zone and play sequences that catch opponents off guard.
“He does a good job of finding what his team can do well and modifying the offensive plan to take advantage of the players that he has and what they are good at,” Belichick said on a recent “ManningCast.”
Bill Belichick and Andy Reid have very different coaching styles, but they have more than winning in common. (Jim Rogash / Getty Images)
The most notable similarity between the coaches is their resiliency, which comes through in their consistency.
Belichick’s teams had losing records in only 27 percent of his seasons; Reid’s have been better, with losing records in just 11 percent. Belichick has gone to the playoffs 65 percent of the time, whereas Reid has coached a playoff team in 77 percent of his seasons.
Belichick was able to resuscitate his team after three crushing Super Bowl losses. Reid’s Eagles teams didn’t let up after losing three straight championship games. The following season, they made it to the Super Bowl — where they lost to Belichick’s Patriots.
Neither Spygate nor Deflategate let the air out of Belichick’s Patriots dynasty.
Reid has continued to coach through intense personal tragedy. His son Garrett was a 29-year-old assistant strength coach with the Eagles when he overdosed on heroin and was found dead in his dorm room during training camp in 2012, a season the Eagles went 4-12.
After being fired when the season ended, Reid started over five days later with the Chiefs. In his first season in Kansas City, Reid won 11 games after the team had won two the previous year.
Producing a second act that is more impressive than the first is a rarity. Reid is doing it in a way that is reminiscent of Shula.
Reid had a .583 winning percentage as head coach of the Eagles and has a .730 percentage with the Chiefs.
Shula won an NFL championship with the Baltimore Colts in 1968 before losing in Super Bowl III to the Jets. Two seasons later, he moved to Miami where he won back-to-back Super Bowls with the Dolphins in 1972 and ’73, with ’72 being the perfect season.
This will be Reid’s sixth Super Bowl as a head coach, which will tie him with Shula for second most behind Belichick’s nine. A coach couldn’t get to six Super Bowls, especially with two teams, without an understanding of how to get the most out of players, coaches and others around him.
Both Reid and Shula were known for pushing their players, though Shula was more stick; Reid more carrot.
When he took over the Dolphins, Shula didn’t have two-a-day practices. He had four a day. Reid is known for running the hardest training camp in the NFL, often encompassing 200 plays in a practice.
Shula’s trademark was his jaw and Reed’s is his mustache, but they speak the same language. Both have been known to be straight-to-the-point communicators, as the best teachers often are. Doug Pederson, who played for both and coached for Reid, once noted players benefited from how both left very little gray in their directives.
Reid and Shula are also alike in that each has maintained a small circle of trusted advisers through both acts — and loyal counsel has added to the greatness of both.
In Reid’s case, three of his most significant assistant coaches have helped him win on two teams.
In 1983, when Reid was the offensive line coach at San Francisco State, one of his blockers was Tom Melvin. Three years later, Reid became offensive line coach at Northern Arizona and convinced Melvin to join the staff as a graduate assistant. Reid later brought him to Philadelphia, then Kansas City. For 26 years, Melvin hasn’t answered to anyone but Reid.
Chiefs special teams coach Dave Toub has worked with Reid for 20 years — 12 years with the Chiefs, three with the Eagles, three at Missouri and two at UTEP.
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In 1999, his first year with the Eagles, Reid hired Steve Spagnoulo as a defensive quality control coach, then promoted him twice. The plan was for Spagnuolo to succeed Jim Johnson as defensive coordinator, but Spagnuolo was hired as Giants defensive coordinator in 2007 when Johnson was still going strong. Reid finally made Spagnuolo his defensive coordinator with the Chiefs in 2019.
The confidantes who have been constants extend beyond Reid’s coaching staff.
In Reid’s sixth year in Philadelphia, he hired a coaching intern who later was promoted to a coaching assistant and eventually became a scout. When Reid went to the Chiefs, he brought him along as a personnel analyst. Now Brett Veach is his general manager, and they have worked together for 21 years.
Reid has had the same agent since 1997 when he was the quarterbacks coach of the Packers. For Reid, Bob LaMonte is more consigliere than contract negotiator.
Like Melvin, Rick Burkholder has been by Reid’s side for the entirety of Reid’s head coaching career as the person in charge of the training room. His current title for the Chiefs is vice president of sports medicine and performance.
Among those who followed Shula from Baltimore to Miami were Bill Arnsparger, the coordinator of the “No-Name Defense,” assistant Carl Taseff, who started out as a roommate and teammate at John Carroll University, offensive line coach John Sandusky and personnel director Charley Winner.
A line could be drawn from Bill Walsh to Holmgren to Reid.
Walsh, who mentored Holmgren, won three Super Bowls in eight years as a head coach and redefined offensive football. Holmgren, who mentored Reid, made two barren franchises fertile again, competing in three Super Bowls in a decade. And what all three did as well as any coaches in history was evaluate, develop and deploy quarterbacks.
Walsh gave wings to Joe Montana and Steve Young. He also lifted Ken Anderson, a Division III player who became NFL MVP. Dan Fouts testifies that Walsh had a massive influence on his Hall of Fame career.
Holmgren, a finalist for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, revived Brett Favre after the Falcons gave up on him. He also nurtured three backups to Favre —Aaron Brooks, Mark Brunell and Matt Hasselbeck. All became starters with other teams.
Before becoming a head coach, Holmgren helped develop Young, both at Brigham Young and with the 49ers.
One of the reasons Reid became a head coaching candidate is Favre was voted league MVP in one of Reid’s two seasons as his position coach.
Mike Holmgren, left, mentored Andy Reid in Green Bay in the 1990s before Reid became head coach of the Eagles. (Kirby Lee / NFL Photo Library)
Reid’s first significant move as coach of the Eagles was drafting Donovan McNabb, who became a six-time Pro Bowler. But Reid showed he wasn’t dependent on him when McNabb tore his ACL in November 2006. Reid called on Jeff Garcia, who had lost 19 of his previous 27 starts with other teams. Garcia took the Eagles to the playoffs by winning five of six games.
In 2009 Reid signed Michael Vick, who had been out of football for two years and had spent time in prison because of his participation in a dog-fighting ring. The next season Vick reached the heights of his career, winning Comeback Player of the Year, finishing second in voting for Most Valuable Player and Offensive Player of the Year and making the Pro Bowl.
Before Reid left Philadelphia, he drafted Nick Foles. After Foles and Reid had left (they were together for one year in Kansas City), Foles returned to the Eagles to help them win Super Bowl LII.
When Reid arrived in Kansas City in 2013, he needed a quarterback. Alex Smith was considered a bust after eight middling seasons with the 49ers, but with Reid, Smith became the quarterback the 49ers hoped he could be, making three Pro Bowls and leading the league in passer rating in 2017.
Reid and Veach identified the special in Mahomes and traded up to take him. Then Reid gave Mahomes the freedom to become the quarterback he never came close to being at Texas Tech.
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Reid turned around the Chiefs. After losing seasons in five of the six seasons before Reid, they have had 12 straight winning seasons since.
It speaks to another similarity between Reid, Holmgren and Walsh. They all excelled at righting wrong-way franchises, though Walsh did it only once.
Reid took over an Eagles team that won 28 percent of its games the previous two years and made Philadelphia perennial Super Bowl contenders.
In 24 seasons before Holmgren was hired by the Packers, they failed to make the playoffs 22 times. Holmgren led them to the postseason every year he was in Green Bay except his first. When Holmgren took over the Seahawks, they had been to the postseason four times in 23 years of existence. Under Holmgren, they went to the playoffs six times in 10 years.
Difficult decisions — a downfall of many coaches — were a strength of all three. Walsh created an uncomfortable dynamic by trading for Young when he had Montana. In Holmgren’s first draft in Seattle, he used the 19th pick to take running back Shaun Alexander even though Ricky Watters had rushed for at least 1,100 yards for five straight seasons. Reid moved on from McNabb and Smith.
Reid, Holmgren and Walsh have something else in common: skill at hiring coaches. Among the coaching stars Reid identified early were Pederson, Spagnuolo, Todd Bowles, Brad Childress, David Culley, Leslie Frazier, John Harbaugh, Mike Kafka, Sean McDermott, Matt Nagy, Ron Rivera and Pat Shurmur.
In addition to Reid, coaches who worked for Holmgren include Jon Gruden, Dick Jauron, Steve Mariucci, Marty Mornhinweg, Mike Sherman, Ray Rhodes and Jim Zorn.
Fruit from Walsh’s coaching tree, in addition to Holmgren, included Brian Billick, Dennis Green, Rhodes, George Seifert and Sam Wyche.
Superiority and relatability don’t always mix well, but Reid is different.
In that way, he’s like Madden. Both were former offensive linemen, big guys who wore their big proudly. Their “average Joe” demeanors resonated, and they disarmed with self-deprecation.
Reid cracks jokes about his weight and has done more for cheeseburgers than anyone since Ray Kroc. He has danced after big wins and wore a Santa suit this season. He pitches insurance by trying to poach “nuggies.”
Reid is one of those people who knows your name if he’s seen you more than once. And he probably knows your spouse’s name. And your kids’ names.
One of Reid’s coaching superpowers is open-mindedness. The 3-x-5 card by Reid’s desk reads, “Don’t judge.”
“In the NFL, you’re getting people from every culture and every environment,” Mahomes once said. “I think he does a great job of being able to be that father figure or uncle or whatever you want to call it. He can get the best out of you, no matter if you grew up with a lot of money or grew up with no money. No matter where you grew up, he knows how to relate to you and get the best out of you.”
Reid encourages his players to be their authentic selves as athletes and humans. If a player has had missteps in his life, Reid often offers a blank slate. It has worked with some, at least on the field, including Vick, Tyreek Hill, Marcus Peters and even Travis Kelce, who had a bad-boy reputation after being suspended one year in college.
When Madden was coaching the Raiders, he rode some wild horses to the front of the pack. He tolerated Ken Stabler’s carousing, Ted Hendricks’ oddities and John Matuszak’s recklessness and now has the best regular season winning percentage in history.
Reid considered Madden a mentor. Madden’s widow, Virginia Madden, told the Los Angeles Times that Reid was Madden’s “go-to guy.” John Madden often messaged Reid, even during Chiefs games.
Reid was one of the eulogists at Madden’s 2021 funeral. “He took me in like one of his own,” Reid said that day. “He said, ‘You played offensive line?’ I said, ‘I did.’ He said, ‘You’re in.’ I was in the club officially. Coach got me to appreciate every day, every game, every play of every game. He taught me not to back off what I knew would be the best for the National Football League. He taught me that coaches weren’t the hamburger flippers of the National Football League, that we had a voice, and if properly presented, people would listen.”
People listen to Reid — as they did Madden — because he’s likable. Or more than likable.
It’s one of the reasons he’s high on the list of all-time great coaches.
(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; photos: Maddie Meyer, Focus on Sport, David Eulitt, Bob Riha, Jr. / Getty Images)
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