Chiefs’ Andy Reid praised Patrick Mahomes’ leadership skills in talk with Coach K
Chiefs coach Andy Reid offered some interesting insights Thursday when he joined Duke men’s basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski’s SiriusXM Radio show.
Reid talked about quarterback Patrick Mahomes, Chris Jones’ future with the team and his coaching style while chatting on the “Basketball & Beyond with Coach K” show.
Krzyzewski asked about Reid’s trust in his players, especially Mahomes.
“He’s a pretty special kid. He works like crazy, he has full trust in us as coaches, and he grew up in a locker room so he’s not awed by other players that have a little bit of stature to them,” Reid said. “He’s gonna come in, he’s gonna work his tail off. He comes in with a smile on his face but that hunger in the heart, and he wants to rip your throat out every time he has an opportunity to on the field. So you love that.
“He’s an innate leader, so the guys know that his closet’s clean, and he’s doing it the right way. So he can crank on guys when he needs to but at the same time be a dude, right? You want to be able to kind of balance that and that’s a tough thing to do as a quarterback.”
Reid made a point of saying Mahomes, who is just 24 years old, still has room to grow.
Krzyzewski then asked how much freedom Reid gives Mahomes during a game.
“I use that old, ‘You’ve got the keys to the car.’ I’m over on the sideline,” Reid said. “He’s got the option to get out of any play anytime and there are various reads on the play so we overload him quite a little bit with that stuff, but he’s got enough gigabytes in the computer up their on his shoulders that he can handle it. He’s a smart kid.
“I tell a story about Alex Smith, who’s one of the smartest guys I’ve ever coached and the ultimate pro, and I was afraid that when Alex left that we wouldn’t be able to keep growing this offense. But that wasn’t a problem at all, and that’s quite an accomplishment for Patrick to be able to do that.”
Krzyzewski asked if the Chiefs’ offense that Reid first built in Kansas City has grown.
Reid answered emphatically: Yes.
“I just kept building and try to give them new things,” Reid said. “We don’t repeat, and I’m saying within a game, so if you’re talking 70 plays, we don’t repeat much in the pass game. So in the offseason we try to really build up the volume of the offense and then try to draw from that, practice it all the way through the offseason and through camp and then draw from those plays during the season. So he can have a little bit of recall on each one and it’s worked out well over the years.”
Reid reiterated that the Chiefs would like to keep defensive lineman Chris Jones, but acknowledged that Mahomes’ pending contract extension could eat into the salary cap.
In explaining the situation, Reid made Krzyzewski chuckle.
“You just have to, you have to work that out when you have a quarterback that’s coming up on a potential contract that might cost a couple Big Macs, you know,” Reid said. “It be will an expensive deal so you’ve got to work that salary cap and kind of balance that thing out, but (Jones) did a nice job for us, so we’d like to keep him.
“But for the most part we’re going to be will be a whole team. We could go line up today even with free agency and be able to play and compete. And that’s not without adding anybody in free agency and/or the draft.
Reid thought he’d lose offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy to an NFL head coaching job, but said the staff is pretty much intact. Only assistant special teams coach Rod Wilson left, taking a job with South Carolina.
Krzyzewski also asked how Reid keeps his composure no matter the situation. Reid’s answer morphed into his coaching philosophy.
“So I was born with red hair, so I’ve learned over time to control that son of a gun,” Reid said. “I work with that. The biggest thing is we’re here to teach. The players don’t want to do bad, they don’t want to lose. And they want to be the best for the most part, and so I look at it like our job is to go out and find something for these guys to even be greater, and then teach them. And if there’s a problem and we lose, it’s not normally one person. It’s normally all of us could have done better, including myself.
“So I go back through and I’m honest with the guys. If they screwed up, I’m gonna teach you. It might be tough love and tough teaching but I’m gonna teach you to do the right things and help you out, so you can even be greater than you are now. And so with that, winning or losing we can learn something. And let’s do that, let’s keep that in mind, and I try to stay consistent with that thinking, and again I’ve been blessed with good players that understand that.”
You can listen to the entire conversation here.
This story was originally published March 6, 2020 at 9:01 AM.
