Andy Reid’s leadership is big reason for KC Chiefs’ course correction

Andy Reid is a predictable man.

As the head coach for the Kansas City Chiefs, or even back when he was leading the Philadelphia Eagles for 14 seasons, Reid has exhibited the same behaviors, used the same lines in press conferences, delivered the same results year after year after year (after year). At some frustrating moments, it’s what his detractors will use to point out his flaws. But for the most part, that stability, that predictability, that measured approach is actually what makes him—and everyone around him—so great for such sustained periods.

The media can be fickle these days when it comes to the National Football League. Everything is already overanalyzed in a 24-7 media cycle for a league that only plays 20 total games per team maximum. There’s no other sport in which so much discussion and analysis is brought forth with so little to actually discuss or analyze. It’s why mountains are made out of molehills and the responses in-season are always so emotional and exaggerated.

Andy Reid’s stable approach is what allows the KC Chiefs to be so good

Earlier this season, when the Chiefs were nearing midseason with a losing record, those same discussions turned dark for the Chiefs. Suddenly Andy Reid was not a creative genius but a coach who needed to make drastic changes. Patrick Mahomes wasn’t the best young quarterback in the game but a broken signal caller. As for the team as a whole, they’d been found out—like some imposter who’d been unmasked at the end of a Scooby Doo episode.

Through it all, Andy Reid never wavered. In press conferences he would say the same thing, something along the lines of, “We know what we need to fix and we’ll fix it.” It was coach speak and nothing more. For fans looking for substance, for some sign that they knew specifically what to do, it was frustrating. But it should have always been clear that Reid was never going to dissect his team in front of reporters. He’s the opposite of a Dan Campbell or Rex Ryan.

In his latest column for FanSided, Matt Lombardo looked at the Chiefs’ organizational stability and, specifically, Reid’s leadership style and how it has helped right the ship that just needed patience to course correct. He spoke with former Chiefs defensive end Mike DeVito about having Reid as a head coach in tough times like what the Chiefs endured for the first half of the 2021 season.

"“The thing about Andy Reid is, he’s always the same,” DeVito says. “Because of that, there are not these huge fluctuations within his teams emotionally, either … He holds fixed to what he knows. He knows how to win. He knows how to systematically put the plan in place so that you are going to win. In November, when a lot of other teams are starting to relax a little bit, we’re at the same pace, mindset, and focus as we were when we started training camp.”"

While Reid has always exuded this sort of non-reactive demeanor, it also doesn’t hurt that he’s still actively employed in the same job for over 20 years. He first became an NFL head coach at the age of 41 and he’s now 63. When you’ve been at something for that long, you learn to go with the flow, knowing that slumps and streaks are a part of the game and that a team can only control so much. That doesn’t mean Reid isn’t making adjustments behind the scenes or ignoring major issues. It simply means that the NFL season can be long and there are ways to go about making changes that ensure continued success.

What’s amazing at this stage is how good things feel for the Chiefs—as if things are lining up perfectly after such a frustrating early season stretch in which everything seemed of. Reid has seen it all before and he should be trusted more by those of us who tend to be more reactionary to a team with such a stable leader in charge.