NDY REID’S BRILLIANCE

Alies in stacks of index cards. He carries them everywhere, always the 3 x 5 version, jamming them into pockets, tucking them into jackets or cradling them in his meaty hands. He scribbles inspiration whenever it strikes: new plays, variations; messages to impart; someone he needs to reach, how. He keeps a blank stack in a desk drawer at Chiefs headquarters so he never runs out. “I don’t know how he never has,” Mahomes says. “He always has another 50 ready to go; that’s how he rolls, little red pen, index cards.”

NFL history is on those. Plays like 2-3 Jet Chip Wasp, which Kansas City famously deployed to convert a critical third-and-15 for their first Super Bowl triumph in half a century.

Viewed one way, index cards are to Reid what No. 2 Ticonderoga pencils are to Bill Belichick. They’re proof that Reid loves football. As his green Ford Model A attests,

Reid is as much tinkerer as coach. Viewed another way, the cards illuminate Reid’s least-discussed strength: adaptability. And more proof of that was the 2023 season.

Perhaps this ethos of indexing came from Reid’s father, a man who applied the same thought process to entirely different realms. Walter Reid’s family emigrated from Scotland. His father worked as a caretaker at a mansion on Cape Cod. There Walter met visitors from all over, while befriending workers of all types. He would apply all those lessons to his career as a scenic artist in Hollywood.

His son took that spirit into shop classes, onto athletic fields and into coaching. Even this season. Especially that. As the Chiefs spiraled toward that Christmas Day nadir, one of Reid’s longtime friends, Lee Bruno, told everyone, “Be patient. This is Andy. They’re getting close.”

In this season of great swings, Reid’s largest adjustment was subtle and brilliant, born from instinct, informed by decades of experience. Both pointed him toward the course they’d already charted. The biggest issues—ill-timed penalties and dropped passes—were correctable. He decided to correct them with trust.

Trust, mostly, in their plan. In the past two drafts, Chiefs GM Brett Veach selected 12 defenders. Eleven were either defensive backs or linemen. The overhaul was intentional and necessary, in light of Mahomes’s contract. Veach prefers his staff whittle down the number of prospects, then asks coordinators—in this case, Steve Spagnuolo—for independent evaluations from a smaller pool. The goal: more accurate assessments.

Like: After their first championship, one player who reached Spagnuolo was L’Jarius Sneed. Evaluators put him in the third tier. Spagnuolo broke down the tape and told Veach he loved Sneed—as much as any college safety in any tier. Veach snagged Sneed,his future star cornerback, in the fourth round in 2020.

Veach went into camp optimistic but unsure. He augmented the youth movement with four veteran defenders. Spagnuolo took over from there. Veach didn’t necessarily believe in August that they would showcase one of the NFL’s top defenses. But Mahomes did tell him he wasn’t enjoying practice all that much against them.

Signs of elite football started in Week 2, at Jacksonville, when the Jaguars’ high-powered offense was still healthy and All-Pro defensive tackle Chris Jones was starting his first game since his holdout. Jacksonville’s three trips into the red zone yielded zero touchdowns. “This defense,” Veach told the coaches, “is good.”

Reid soon agreed with the motto his defenders had slapped onto T-shirts: in spags we trust. “I got him a team picture,” says Reid of his coordinator’s worst-Christmas-ever gift. “And a box of nuts.”

Christensen notes that many “bad situations” for the 2023 Chiefs started with complacency, the product of so much recent success. The fix: “Andy’s wisdom as one of the top three coaches in NFL history,” he says. Reid simplified the offense and focused on the offensive line. Mahomes did the same with the receivers. The plan: back to basics.

Fthe arm talent, athleticism, throwing angles, creativity, vision and instincts. Another overlooked Mahomes superpower saved K.C.’s season: his brain. “He’ll pull out examples from games he didn’t even play in,” Kelce says. “He’s able to process information at speeds I can’t [fathom]. Like he’s a martian. Or a mutant.”

Mahomes stops short of describing his memory as photographic. “I don’t know if I could, like, go to Harvard,” he says. His father, Patrick Mahomes Sr., chooses

another term: eidetic, or the ability to recall images from memory with precision, even after only one viewing.

Even on the worst Christmas, deep into the freefall portion of the season, Mahomes’s memory mattered more than ever. The sky, after plummeting, had burrowed deep underground. This, popular sentiment went, just wasn’t Kansas City’s year.

The antidote wasn’t that magical right arm. Reid noticed something more important: how Mahomes imprinted the locker room—and how deeply. He was their soul, the one, him, the person upon whom everyone and everything rotated, including the only two ways to assess a Chiefs season of recent vintage—championship or failure.

Reid noticed the imprinting starting once more last spring, when Mahomes summoned skill-position teammates to Fort Worth, Texas, where he trains. For the second consecutive year, Mahomes and Kelce became teachers, professors of a specific and deadly form of offensive football—theirs.

Among the attendees: Rashee Rice, who starred at nearby SMU before Veach selected him in the second round. Rice welcomed the indoctrination, which isn’t to say his rookie season met even modest expectations. He struggled—with route precision, drops and acclimating to the NFL.

The bonds strengthened in Texas had to hold. Had to ensure Mahomes not only trusted that Rice would eventually overcome his struggles but also would vault higher. Had to ensure extra film review sessions and additional reps after practice until both had perfected the precision Rice needed to become the catalyst for a late-season surge.

And they did. Against the Raiders in Las Vegas on Nov. 26, Rice gained a season-best 107 receiving yards. Against Cincinnati in Week 17, as Kansas City clinched an eighth consecutive division crown: 127. Against Miami, in the wildcard round where the trendy upset pick never materialized: 130.

After the bold Christmas night prediction, Christensen studied Mahomes in warm-ups. He always does. Christensen knew Michael Jordan; he had played golf with His Airness. “Guys like that go to a different place,” Christensen says. “Michael Jordan has that look. LeBron James does not. Michael had a stare, this expression that seemed like he was searching inside your soul. Tiger had it. Muhammad Ali. Derek Jeter.”

And Patrick Mahomes. “You watch him, and you see he’s in a different place,” Christensen says. “He reminds me of Elvis, just the greatest of the greats at their chosen crafts. In his mind, he’d already won.”

Tbefore kickoff, buses pulled into the Chiefs’ hotel after their final practice of the season. Security patrolled the grounds of the Westin Lake Las Vegas, from pool to golf