The Riverside Press-Enterprise
BETTER WITH AGE
In 25th year as coach, this might have been best job yet for Chiefs’ Reid
Andy Reid celebrated his 25th season as a head coach with a masterful performance on the sideline and in the locker room.
The Kansas City Chiefs are one victory away from becoming the first NFL team in 19 years to win back-to-back Super Bowls. They’re here to face the San Francisco 49ers despite a midseason slump that could’ve ruined their repeat hopes.
Reid kept them steady.
This isn’t the best team Reid has coached but it just might be his best coaching job.
Sure, he still has Patrick Mahomes. But the two-time NFL and Super Bowl MVP had a subpar season by his lofty standards. He didn’t get much help from his wide receivers at times. They led the league in drops.
Mahomes once again counted on star tight end Travis Kelce, who had a slight dip in production to go with a massive increase in global attention due to his relationship with Taylor Swift.
Reid made sure Kelce’s newfound celebrity status didn’t become a distraction.
After starting 6-1, the Chiefs lost five of eight games. At 9-6, they even had a shot to miss the playoffs and ended up with their most losses since 2017.
No chance Reid, a Los Angeles native, would let them stumble further. The Chiefs won the next two games to clinch their eighth straight AFC West title and have kept on winning in the playoffs, beating Miami
at home in the wild-card round, going on the road to beat Buffalo in the divisional round and No. 1-seeded Baltimore in the AFC championship game.
“Coach Reid just challenging every single person in this building to up the ante just one more step and just keep taking it up a notch every week from here on out,” Kelce said. “That’s why we love the big guy. You never fall astray from that kind of mentality no matter how many losses you have, no matter how close the games are and you’re just not finishing them. Coach Reid does a great job of re-channeling that mindset every single week and presenting a challenge against the defense or the offense or just the team we’re going against in the near future. This week, no better time to challenge everybody in that building. He’s got everyone fired up.”