Mellinger Minutes: Reid talks smack, a smart-aleck bus driver, and productive pettiness
Andy Reid plays a character on TV. Not during games. He’s himself then: creative, trusting, in control, comfortable.
The character comes out in press conferences. He’s a naturally funny man, with a malleable sense of humor that can hit the right note for the right moment. He can be dry, or sarcastic, or colorful, or cutting, or self-deprecating.
But he keeps that part of it hidden publicly, as much as he can. There are reasons for this. Coaches sometimes talk about “reducing the drag” on the broader mission, and maybe that’s part of it.
Anything he says publicly is consumed by those he’s charged to lead. The wrong words can distract. They can detract. The wrong words can inspire the other side, which is never good, which is why he constantly — and sometimes comically, like when the Chiefs played the Jets — talks about looking forward to the challenge of playing a good football team with good coaches and good players.
Well, Reid appears to have made an exception. Here is something he said Monday as the Chiefs come off a bye and prepare to play the Raiders.
“I don’t think either team likes each other that much, as they stated before.”
That is Reid’s equivalent of tapping the top of his head with an open palm after a complicated screen pass. That is Reid essentially doing the Griddy. By his standards, he has grabbed his crotch.
And he wasn’t done. He said this after a question that referenced the Raiders taking their bus on a literal victory lap around Arrowhead Stadium.
“They won the game so they can do anything the want to do. That’s not our style. But we’ll get ourselves back ready to play.”
Again, for most in the NFL, that’s not much in the way of trash talk. But from Reid, well, he may as well have talked about Gruden’s mother.
One more. Reid was asked about whether a team that lost the first time is at an advantage in the rematch. It’s an interesting thought, and not just because the Raiders beat the Chiefs in Week 5 but because the Chiefs avenged losses in each of their first two playoff games last season.
Anyway, Reid was asked if he’s thought about that.
“I haven’t. I think they have, or they wouldn’t have driven the bus around the stadium.”
And this, my friends, is Reid’s equivalent of going full Maximus Decimus Meridius: ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?!?!?!?!?
Maybe fans and media overstate the importance of things like this. The team that wins Sunday night will be the team that has the better game plan and executes it well. The team that wins will not make bad turnovers and will make a few game-defining plays. In these very broad strokes, football is not complicated.
But Reid is a prideful man, and he is the head coach of a collection of wildly prideful men.
This group will find disrespect where none exists. Patrick Mahomes has a half-billion dollar contract and believes he’s overlooked. Tyrann Mathieu made the All-Decade team and he points to his head like people don’t think he’s smart.
My expectation was always going to be that the Chiefs win this game. They’re the better team, they’re getting healthier, Reid’s record off a bye week is well-established, and it’s hard to believe Steve Spagnuolo won’t do a better job of creating pressure. My expectation was always going to be that they win by more than a few points, and that at least one touchdown celebration involves someone driving an imaginary bus around the end zone.
My expectation now includes some wild red zone play where Chris Jones is in the Wildcat and ends up throwing a behind-the-back ally oop screen pass to Mike Remmers or something.
The Raiders are a very good team. We’ll talk more about that below. But the winds are blowing in a way that should bring out the Chiefs’ best, and right now the Chiefs’ best is too much for any opponent.
This week’s reading recommendation is Mike DeCourcy on the day Covid stopped March Madness, and the eating recommendation is the cluck yeah sandwich at Mother Clucker.
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Andrew is one of the more pessimistic Chiefs fans I’ve heard from, limiting the Super Bowl haul to “most of the next six.”
I hold the following beliefs, and hold them strongly:
- Winning one Super Bowl is a career-defining accomplishment for most, and success like that should never be diminished or taken for granted.
- This is a next-level collection of players and coaches, and if they only win one Super Bowl the core stars will look back with more regret than pride.
That’s a wild thing to say, but I believe it in my bones. More relevantly, I believe the core stars and coaches believe it in their bones. The Aaron Rodgers example is useful here.
If the Packers get 15 or so seasons of not just Hall of Fame quarterbacking but first-ballot Hall of Fame quarterbacking and they only win one Super Bowl do you think they’ll be satisfied? They shouldn’t be.
Now, the games still have to be won. Good breaks still have to be had. There will be season-ending injuries for stars, or magical seasons for opponents, or any number of potential obstacles.
That’s what I mean by not taking these things for granted. Nobody is entitled to championships and, if anything, the second and third times around become more difficult.
Some of this may be COVID related, but there seems to be a growing gap between the good teams and everyone else. You could say with relative certainty that we’re not going to have a surprise Super Bowl champion.
There’s a tier of true contenders, and the gap between them and the rest feels bigger than most seasons. The Chiefs are in a group by themselves, with the Steelers, Bucs, Packers and maybe the Saints, Ravens and Bills behind them.
What kind of odds would you need to bet on anyone else winning the Super Bowl? Or even getting to the Super Bowl?
I’d feel pretty good with just the Chiefs, Steelers, Bucs and Packers.
But the broader point is that there are some franchises building what look to be long-term solid foundations. The Ravens, Seahawks, Cardinals, Chargers, Texans and Bills each have young star quarterbacks. The Bengals and Dolphins might, too.
The Rams, Titans and 49ers have loads of talent and a system that can prop up a competent quarterback. If the Colts get an upgrade they could be a power. You’re going to make fun of me, and maybe that’s warranted, but the Giants aren’t that far away. Someone’s going to draft Trevor Lawrence. Someone else is going to get Justin Fields.
The future of the league is bright, is what I’m saying.
They’re all chasing the Chiefs, who are ridiculously well positioned for the future. But the Chiefs will have to continue to earn what they believe is theirs.
Hotter take: If Mahomes doesn’t win MVP, it better not be Russell Wilson. The guy is second in the league in interceptions. Love Wilson, and understand he needs to push it with that defense, but being second in interceptions should be a disqualification.
But that’s a little beside the point.
The counter-take to what you present here is that Mahomes will think of something. He’ll make something up. There is no reality in which he will not think of something to help drive him.
If he doesn’t win, yes, clearly. He’ll be driven. He’ll think about the disrespect, and that the only season in which he hasn’t won MVP is the one in which he won the Super Bowl.
But if he does win, he’ll be driven then, too. Because he’ll pay attention to anyone saying he’s overrated, or a beneficiary of the system and talent, or that Kyler Murray did the same with less, or that Aaron Rodgers was better, or that Tom Brady turned around a franchise that hadn’t been in the playoffs in 13 years.
Can you imagine if Mahomes was actually disrespected? The attitude he’d have?
I’m not sure any player has had a higher volume of positive coverage, or a better ratio of positive-to-negative, and he’s still found lies to tell himself. The guy has a gift.
The Raiders are very good! And that is not a sentence I expected to type in 2020!
The roster is so much better than even a few years ago. They have a nice mixture of speed and toughness, of playmakers and grinders. The pairing of Henry Ruggs and Nelson Agholor on the outside with the intermediate threats from Hunter Renfrow and Darren Waller is effective.
The defense could use some attention, but Maxx Crosby and some other pieces like Clelin Ferrell and Johnathan Hankins are an interesting mix.
If you’re a Raiders fan, you have to feel good about the direction.
But there is a separator in the NFL, and I’m just not sure how far you can get with Derek Carr as your quarterback.
Carr is not bad. This is not an insult of the man. It is just an acknowledgment that he is specifically limited. If the trains are on time, he can be your conductor. But if the pressure is consistent, or the receivers aren’t exactly where they’re supposed to be at the moment they’re supposed to be there ... well, then, that’s when things go off the rails.
And to win playoff games, you’re going to have to be good against consistent pressure, and create positive plays when the structure falls apart.
Jon Gruden, his coaches, and the Raiders front office deserve a lot of credit. I thought Gruden was a vanity hire, and maybe that’s still how this will turn out. He’s less than a third of the way into his contract.
But they appear to have provided some sense of stability to an organization that’s been in desperate need of stability for almost two full decades.
They are good enough to win a lot of divisions in the NFL, and this isn’t just an NFC East joke.
The problem is they’re in the Chiefs’ shadow. Because the Raiders have a solid team, but the Chiefs have a spectacular one. The Raiders can win as long as they’re on schedule, but the Chiefs are often at their most dangerous when off schedule.
That’s a very real separator. If the Raiders can find their way to a more dynamic quarterback, this conversation changes dramatically.
Prediction: the Chiefs will beat the Raiders, and within minutes some players — and I’ll be shocked if Frank Clark isn’t among them — will start tweeting bus emojis and GIFs.
Patrick Mahomes celebrates his fourth touchdown pass by driving an imaginary bus, which he later tries to explain as an appreciation for Gus, who drove Whitehouse High to all the games back in the day and just retired.
Maybe? Here’s what I think:
The Chiefs are the AFC’s best team, and the Steelers are very good but also flawed in several ways. The Steelers’ schedule is easier — the Ravens, Bills, Colts and Browns are the toughest games — but their path to winning games is also narrower.
I would not be shocked if the Chiefs finish 15-1, and I would not be surprised if they’re 13-3 and still get the No. 1 seed.
The Steelers have some stuff to get through. Those are four games against good teams. The Ravens outplayed them in every way except a few disastrous plays. The Steelers will have played 13 consecutive weeks by the end of the season. We’ve seen hot starts fade around this time before.
The Chiefs’ schedule is tougher, but they’ll be favored in every game. I believe Steve Spagnuolo and that defensive front will find a way to pressure Derek Carr and Tom Brady. I believe they’ll find a way to shrink the field against Drew Brees (assuming he plays). I believe the Dolphins are better, but still a level or two below.
None of this really matters, of course. The games will happen and we’ll see where things stand, but that’s another thing I keep thinking about:
Assuming relative health, I’d rather have the Chiefs as the No. 2 seed than the Steelers as the No. 1.
And we haven’t mentioned yet that the NFL passed a contingency playoff structure in which nobody would have a first-round bye.
More now with kids.
I’m a classics guy by nature: Bears, 49ers, Chargers, Raiders, Jets. Those are my favorite uniforms in the league, but I’d be lying if I said I really care.
I’m neck-deep in personalities and trends and numbers and strategy and everything else to care much longer than two seconds about the costumes.
But seeing these things through my kids’ eyes is changing me a bit. Our 4-year-old has decided he loves the Chargers, and it’s basically for two reasons and two reasons only.
First, he’s a natural contrarian, has been since birth, and if everyone around him loves the Chiefs he’s going to pick something different. Second, the uniforms are objectively awesome.
Honestly, I adore each of these reasons.
The first-grader loves the Chiefs but also has many uniform takes (he loves the Seahawks) and can tell you who has a helmet visor, who has a big mouth guard, who goes sleeveless in the snow and so on. We had college games on in the background Saturday and he put Thanksgiving stickers all over one of his helmets, like he’s starting for Florida State or something.
And, yeah, how could I not love all of this?
But, yeah, for me, I’m looking at kit launches and uniform changes and everything else as marketing. And I don’t have a lot of energy for marketing.
I’ll tell you the path that makes the most sense to me, and the one I’ve heard mentioned most often from people inside the sport.
The stars will always be paid. The Chiefs are a great example of that, actually. The rules are just different for Patrick Mahomes — you pay whatever price you have to, because it’s still a bargain based on what he does on and off the field.
But the middle class is going to be hallowed out.
It’s worth noting here that the erosion of the middle class has been a trend for years, and something that some agents and players have discussed long before COVID-19.
Cheap labor — rookie contracts in the NFL; 0-3 service time guys in MLB — are worth their weight in platinum.
So the challenge for front offices becomes to keep the stars you develop, and create a consistent pipeline of young talent who over perform their limited salaries.
What I’m saying is that contracts like Kendall Fuller’s in Washington will be increasingly rare. Guys will either show themselves worthy of a star’s contract, or be offered Bashaud Breeland money from a few different suitors.
The ceiling on free agents may have to come down a little. The cap’s consistent growth over the last five to 10 years has allowed teams to use free agency as a legitimate supplement to championship contention.
So if the cap goes down over the next few seasons, maybe a star gets $50 million guaranteed instead of $60 million. Maybe his contract averages $16 million instead of $20 million. But there will always be competition for the most premium talent, so the most premium talent will always be able to command a higher price.
But it’ll be harder to justify investing big money in a B- player if a C+ guy is there at a lower cost.
We’re starting to see it go that way, actually.
The Chargers game was very encouraging. He was statistically excellent that game, but he had everything else working, too — smart throws, good reads, clutch at the end.
Those moments scream that it’s all in there with him, but then how to explain so many other moments? He looked overwhelmed against the Chiefs, for instance, and is now worst in the league or near worst in completion percentage, interception percentage, yards per attempt, and passer rating.
You’re absolutely right to point out the organization and offensive line aren’t helping. But the skill talent is impressive. They miss Courtland Sutton, obviously, but Jerry Jeudy is a star, they have two good running backs, and a dependable tight end.
If Lock’s future is Teddy Bridgewater or Nick Foles, then fine. He’ll have a long career as a low-end starter or high-end backup, probably playing for three or four teams and enjoying some fun moments.
But some of us thought there was more there. Some of us thought he just needed a little more structure, a little more help, and that he’d end up one of those quarterbacks who performed better in the NFL than in college.
There’s still time for all of that. The Broncos are a mess. Maybe all they need is a better line and a new coordinator and Lock will have a sort of Kirk Cousins or Ryan Tannehill run.
But it’s also fair to think that if he was going to be a star that we’d be seeing more of it already.
Marty McFly’s Johnny B. Goode and I will not hear otherwise.
Congrats!
The first thing you should do is celebrate. I can’t tell you how to do that. I’m a food guy, so if it was me, I’m getting ribs and burnt ends or wings and tater tots and I’m opening my favorite beer and feeling like a king for a night. But you do you.
The second thing you should do is remember this feeling. And do good by it. Remember the reasons you feel the way you feel right now. Remember what you want to accomplish with this job, the people you want to reach, the work you want to do. You will have days you wake up tired or distracted or otherwise off. Remember how you feel right now, and vow to make good on it.
The third thing you should do is recognize right now before you start that the job is not perfect. There will be headaches. Challenges. Failures. You’ll have a boss you don’t like, or a co-worker you don’t get along with, or some corporate policy you feel limits what you’re able to do. Something. No job is perfect. Know that. Prepare for it. Realize that you can work through any challenge.
But, please, if you ignore everything else just remember this: congrats. A lot of people don’t ever get that feeling. Enjoy the heck out of it.
This is a significant issue in my life, and I’m in a bit of a transition period right now.
We have lots of trees in our yard, including two big mamas that don’t drop at the same time. From beginning to end, over a three or four week span, I’m probably good for around 75 bags.
Shortly after we moved in, I bought one of those Ghostbusters leaf blowers. It’s fun to use in a very immature way. If you find the right day — dry, not too windy or cold — you can make a lot of progress that way.
But a neighbor convinced me to give mowing another try: mow once to sort of mulch, then go over it a second time with the bag attached. You get more leaves in each bag this way, and your back and hamstrings feel a lot better the next day. I’m not sure I’ll ever go back.
Though, I must say, the paying someone thing is really tempting. It seems like every time I’m doing the leaves I see a few guys pull up to a neighbor’s, throw a tarp down and take everything away in like 20 minutes. We have a bigger yard, especially for the neighborhood, and I can be out there for an hour or two.
But I also have this aversion to paying people to do something I’m capable of, and there are worse ways to spend time than outside in the yard listening to music or podcasts. Do my own leaves and I feel a little better about the next time I waste money on something.
There is, of course, the best option: Be in a place where you shoot the leaves into the street and someone comes through and takes them away. God bless you if you have that setup.
This week, I’m particularly grateful for everyone who’s devoted the last eight or nine months of their lives to create a COVID-19 vaccine. The recent news is encouraging, and would not exist without some of the brightest and hardest working people in the world focusing on this.
This story was originally published November 17, 2020 at 5:00 AM.