Playoffs put Reid’s coaching-tree legacy on display
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — When the Chiefs meet Cleveland on Sunday at Arrowhead Stadium, they formally will be playing in the AFC divisional round. But the proceedings might also be understood as the Andy Reid Invitational.
Each of the other three remaining conference teams is coached by men whose NFL careers began or were accelerated under the shade of Reid’s sprawling coaching tree — including Browns coach Kevin Stefanski.
And that’s much than just a footnote.
At 62 and energized by the once-in-a-lifetime collaborative connection with Patrick Mahomes, Reid figures to coach on for some time now. And his profound contributions to the game and ultimately historical legacy are only beginning to be clear in the wake of his first Super Bowl triumph and ascension this season to fifth-winningest coach in NFL history. Anyone who knows Reid well, though, knows this:
The way he’s nurtured others, both as a person and a coach, will always mean more to him than anything else.
One particularly tangible reflection of that is how many of those that he’s influenced more or helped have advanced into the rarefied air of NFL head coaching jobs.
It says something important about how he’s viewed around the game and about how he views his own role. Never mind that he also happens to be 14-6 against former assistants, including 2-0 against them this season.
As he spoke about why this element of the job was meaningful to him, Reid first alluded to the hard work done on his behalf by those in his employ.
Then he said that coaching is “not all X’s and O’s. It’s how you deal with people and take care of your players and at the same time give them whatever they need to be the best they possibly can be.”
As you see them mature in the work, he added, “You go, ‘Well, heck, they sure deserve a job, to have an opportunity to run their own building. And then teach others how to do the same things.’ I think it’s kind of a neat process as it works out over the years. I’m part of that process, because of Mike Holmgren (hiring him with the Packers). So I’ve lived this. And it’s kind of a neat deal.”
And a deal still unfolding. Remember that “Six Degrees of Separation” concept, about how anyone on the planet is connected through no more than five links (six degrees)? With Reid around the NFL, you might be able to reduce the notion to two or three — with the scope seemingly sure to get closer in the years to come.
Especially if three highly credentialed current coordinators (Eric Bieniemy, Steve Spagnuolo and Dave Toub) soon get the chances that their achievements and reviews certainly suggest they should.
(A looser interpretation of “coaching tree” might include a fifth current coach, Indianapolis’ Frank Reich, who coached under Pederson in Philadelphia.)
Meanwhile, five other former Reid assistants have held such a job, including Spagnuolo and others who perhaps will resurface.
As for the more immediate scene?
Should the Chiefs beat the Browns on Sunday, they’d play the winner of the game between Baltimore (coached by John Harbaugh, a Reid assistant in Philadelphia for nine years before taking over the Ravens) and Buffalo (Sean Mcdermott, who like Chiefs general manager Brett Veach initially was an Eagles intern who transitioned into Reid’s direct assistant).
If assistant to Reid sounds intriguing but less than glamorous, imagine the case of Stefanski a rung or two below. He got his first whiff of the NFL as an intern at the Eagles training camp in Bethlehem, Pa., in 2005.
By his words, he said, laughing, during a Zoom interview with Kansas City media, he “wasn’t even the low man on the totem pole; I was below the low, low, low man.”
“Not a lot of glory in training camp internships,” he later added. “You’re doing anything and everything that’s asked, whether it’s stacking Gatorades in the cooler, driving people to and from the airport. It’s truly an anything and everything job.”
But enough something.
“When I had that opportunity, and you’re around a great organization, just seeing how it was run definitely lit a fire and made me think this (was) something that I’d love to pursue,” he said.
Meanwhile, in a fine reminder about one idea of luck being preparation meeting opportunity, theneagles offensive coordinator Brad Childress took notice of Stefanski even in that menial role.
It helped that he knew he’d been a team captain at the University of Pennsylvania and that his father had been a former NBA player and executive. But Childress once told the Minneapolis Star-tribune that he had been impressed with “the way he carried himself to kindle during training camp.”
By the time Stefanski went on that fall to another humbling grass-roots job, assistant director of football operations at Penn, Childress had made a mental note that he would seek to hire him as his personal assistant when he got a head coaching job.
So a few months later, Stefanski joined Childress when he took over the Minnesota Vikings. Shazam, Stefanski spent the next 14 years in Minnesota, moving up the ranks to offensive coordinator before being named coach of the Browns a year ago Wednesday.
Last weekend, the Browns beat Pittsburgh 4837 for Cleveland’s first NFL playoff win since 1994.
In a quirky twist of the times and a story in itself, Stefanski watched the game from his basement after testing positive for COVID-19. Stefanski, who said he experienced mild symptoms, is expected to return to the team on Thursday.
Which means his first playoff experience as an NFL head coach will be against Reid, someone he grew up rooting for and admires to this day. And someone, like so many others can say, he can point to as helping pave his way — a dynamic that likely will continue and surely endure as one of Reid’s most substantial stamps on the game.