Reid excels with time to prepare

With a week off between the NFL conference championship games and Super Bowl 55, it’s time to revisit the “Andy Reid off a bye” narrative.

I’m not exactly breaking news here, but Reid has a history of putting extra time to good use and his teams performing well in games immediately following a bye.

But winning is one thing while covering the spread is another.

Using our Action Labs database, let’s examine the Reid bye-week narrative in NFL betting terms, and while we’re at it, take a look at Buccaneers head coach Bruce Arians’ results with extra time to prepare as well.

Andy Reid spread (ATS), good for a 60.7% win rate. This includes both regular season and postseason games.

In terms of units won, Reid trails just Mike McCarthy and Bill Belichick over that span.

On the other hand, Arians has covered the spread just four times in nine total games off a bye, which is a rate of 44.4%.

Do these ATS trends mean bettors should run out and jump on the Chiefs immediately? Absolutely not, these sample sizes are small and there is more to coaching than just performance relative to betting-market expectations.

However, it’s not a stretch to say that Kansas City has the coaching edge over Tampa Bay in Super Bowl 55, and how both Reid and Arians make use of extra preparation is one piece of the Chiefs vs. Buccaneers coaching puzzle.

At the time of writing, the Chiefs are between 3- and 3.5-point favorites against the Bucs according to the latest Super Bowl 55 odds.