Their own words: What Chiefs said about Coach Reid after getting him a Super Bowl win
Confetti fell. Commemorative KC Star newspapers proclaiming the Chiefs champs of the world were raised. Hugs, kisses, tears of joy in abundance.
But one thread was common in it all: After beating the San Francisco 49ers 31-20 Sunday night in Super Bowl LIV at Hard Rock Stadium, Kansas City players talked about how much they enjoyed helping longtime NFL head coach Andy Reid win an elusive NFL title at long last.
What follows is a sampling of their sentiment as Sunday night turned into Monday morning and the emotions poured out.
But first, a bit from Big Red himself:
“I told them I’d coach another 20 years if I could have that group right there. They’re a beautiful bunch, resilient, tough, tough-minded, very tough-minded as you saw tonight. I’m so proud of them.”
Patrick Mahomes, Super Bowl MVP QB
“I had two goals when I became the starting quarterback for the Kansas City Chiefs, and the first goal was to win the Lamar Hunt trophy. I wanted to bring it home, the one that has our founder’s name on it. I wanted to bring it to this family and this organization. And the second-most important thing was to get Coach Reid a Super Bowl trophy. He’s one of the greatest coaches of all time. I don’t think he needed the Lombardi Trophy to prove that. But just to do that, it puts all doubt aside, and he’s going to be listed as one of the all-time great coaches in history whenever he wants to be done, which I hope is not anytime soon.”
Travis Kelce, tight end
“You see how hard that guy works and how personable he is. He acts like a father figure to everyone in the building, and you appreciate that. There are days when I see that guy’s car never move. You can see how much work he puts in to get us in the right position ... to succeed. I’m forever grateful for that to live my life, have a paycheck and be able to eat because this guy puts his heart into what he does. ... We’re married together forever now. He can’t get rid of me. I’ll be over at Thanksgiving. One of these days, I’ll tell him how much I appreciate him.”
Eric Fisher, left tackle
“I am so happy for Coach Reid. That looks pretty good to me. We’re taking the trophy back home to Kansas City to Chiefs Kingdom.”
Anthony Sherman, fullback
“I mean, we’re not here to play around. We’re here to win this thing and do it on our shoulders. For a coach to be able to say to his team, ‘Listen, I am going to rely on you and trust in you guys, go get it done...’ We got it done for him. ... We’ve been working seven years right here with Coach Reid, and a lot of these guys in this room that are here, they wanted to win this for Coach and we finally did.”
Tyrann Mathieu, safety
“I think that was our goal this whole week — to win this game for Coach Reid. He’s been doing this a long time. Obviously he has done a lot for a lot of the players in that locker room, a lot of the coaches in the locker room and a lot of the coaches in the NFL in general. It’s been a long time coming for him. He’s such a good man. He gives us that confidence, he lets us be ourselves and he has created this culture that is all about family, that it is all about team. We can feel that.”
Anthony Hitchens, linebacker
“You should’ve seen the smile on his face with that Gatorade on him. It’s good for him and a lot of other people. We worked hard. We had a common goal. We came together. We put all of our pride, our tackles, our sacks, our touchdowns aside just to win a ballgame.”
Andy Reid
We’ll let Coach have the last word here.
“You get one, you want to go get another one, but we’ve got to backpedal for about a minute here and enjoy this one. And (then) we’ll get busy on the next one.”
This story was originally published February 3, 2020 at 12:36 AM.