Chiefs coach Andy Reid says Dwayne Bowe is ‘misconstrued’

As he sat at a table surrounded by multiple Philadelphia Eagles writers during the AFC coaches breakfast at the NFL’s annual meetings on Tuesday, Chiefs coach Andy Reid turned one of several questions about new receiver Jeremy Maclin into an opportunity to praise one of his former receivers — Dwayne Bowe.

“He obviously can go get the football, the deep ball,” Reid said of Maclin, a former Eagles receiver. “He’s good in the short-to-intermediate game, he also knows the offense very well. That’s not taking anything away from the receivers we had there. …

“I know the touchdown thing, that doesn’t happen very often, like the last 50 years,” Reid said with a laugh, referring to the Chiefs wide receivers’ touchdown-less 2014. “But they were still very productive. Dwayne Bowe goes down as one of the leading receivers in Chiefs history and, by the way, is a phenomenal team guy. A good person … he’s the most misconstrued guy I’ve been around, I think.

“I love Dwayne Bowe, so I’m happy for him it worked out well in Cleveland there.”

Bowe, 30, signed with the Browns last week after averaging 58 catches and 713 yards in his two seasons under Reid. Bowe was set to have a cap number of $14 million in 2015 but was released shortly after the Chiefs signed Maclin in free agency — which was anything but a sure thing, according to Reid, who insists that he sweated out the three-day legal-tampering period that preceded the onset of free agency on March 10.

“You’ve got like a two- or three-day window there where you talk to the agent but you can’t do a deal,” Reid said. “It’s crazy … it’s like dangling a filet mignon in front of me, right here. And you can’t talk to the kid.”

Reid said he has always liked Maclin, a player he drafted out of Missouri in the first round and coached from 2009 to 2012 in Philadelphia, but he didn’t think the Eagles would let him get away.

“I know Jeremy loved it there. He came out publicly and said that and had his productive years (there), so I was thinking he wasn’t going to be a Chief,” Reid said. “It just worked out … and I held my breath all the way until he was in that building and signed that paper.”

Reid was also happy with the addition of veteran receiver Jason Avant, who signed a one-year deal in March after helping the receiving corps the last month of last season.

“We re-signed Avant to mix in there, and Jason is a good inside receiver, somebody the quarterback trusts,” Reid said. “I think we've got a good nucleus there. I'm excited about the group.”

This story was originally published March 24, 2015 at 1:47 PM with the headline "Chiefs coach Andy Reid says Dwayne Bowe is ‘misconstrued’."