Beating Eagles, Andy Reid wins 100th game with KC Chiefs. His time in Philly? Old news
It had been nearly nine years since the Philadelphia Eagles had rather amicably fired Andy Reid, ending a 14-year relationship that each party recognized had become weary and stale and led to Reid becoming precisely the right man at the right time to revive the Chiefs.
And it had been eight years since the first and only time Reid had coached here against his former team, eight years during which each franchise won a Super Bowl (the first for the Eagles and the first in 50 years for the Chiefs).
So there was little that was particularly edgy in the dynamics this time around when Reid and the Chiefs took on the Eagles Sunday at Lincoln Financial Field, where the boo-birds mustered only some half-hearted squawks when Reid took the field (and that actually may have been directed at Chiefs players alongside him).
And after the Chiefs’ anxiety-inducing journey to a comfortable 42-30 final margin, the mood seemed well-expressed by a fan yelling at Reid as he walked off the field into the tunnel:
“Andy, Philly still loves you — just a little bit less now.”
But there was a lot more to the moment here … and not just because the Chiefs desperately needed to win this game after losing their last two and appearing vulnerable and ordinary.
(Actually, this win had enough distressing developments to suggest they still are in flux, covered in other pieces Sunday for The Star.)
The victory, after all, was Reid’s 100th with the Chiefs (including postseason games), making him the first coach in NFL history to guide more than one franchise to 100-plus wins.
This is a remarkable feat. Even if Reid characteristically trivialized it.
“Glad it took place, and it’s over with,” he said.
Not surprisingly, Reid also again downplayed the illness that led him to spend a night in the hospital after the Chiefs lost to the Chargers last week and suggested he never doubted he’d be coaching on Sunday.
Glossing over the emotions of winning No. 100 here by focusing on such side-points as the food left for him in his hotel room, Reid laughed when asked if this struck a chord at all and said, “No, listen, I’m pretty good with it; you want me to cry up here?”
Suffice to say he held off.
But that didn’t make this any less momentous.
The fact that it happened in Philadelphia, where he won 140 games, could be shrugged off as coincidence. Or built up like destiny. You might readily make a case for either.
Whatever you believe, though, the breakthrough undeniably represents a certain symmetry and juxtaposition that frames how we will ultimately view Reid’s legacy.
And nobody expressed the essence of this better than Patrick Mahomes.
Philadelphia, Mahomes said, was where Reid “kind of came into his own” and “kind of became Andy Reid, in a sense.”
Then he became not just Andy Reid 2.0 in Kansas City, but something substantially more:
A coach who would have been remembered for being darned good but never quite a champion now is among the winningest in the history of the game and coming off back-to-back Super Bowl berths, with the suggestion of more ahead in the Mahomes era (no matter how unsettling their early-season defense has been).
And a coach whose foundation was with the Eagles has achieved his true identity in Kansas City.
So if you feel irritated by the Chiefs’ 2-2 start, take a ride in the wayback machine to 2012 for a reminder of how things have changed.
Not that it means a free pass for the defensive gaffes underscoring everything right now, but there’s an element of this that might count as what they call first-world problems because of what Reid has done … and the fundamental difference in the sort of association Chiefs fans have with their team since Reid’s arrival.
“I think when you look back on it, you’ll know him as a Kansas City Chief,” said Mahomes, who is a key reason for Reid’s rise but also a beneficiary of their symbiotic relationship. “The way he’s been able to build up this organization from day one and win and build (it) up to where we won the Super Bowl and then got back to the Super Bowl, and now are at where we are right now …
“He’s building something. He’ll continue to build it. We have a lot of young guys on this team who he gets the best out of every single day.
“No offense to Philly,” Mahomes added, “but I’m glad they let him go and he’s here coaching us in Kansas City.”
We got an extra glimpse of Reid’s impact on his players Sunday when Clyde Edwards-Helaire said he’d probably thought about this milestone for Reid “100 times, no pun intended” in the last week.
Because Edwards-Helaire wanted to be part of doing something special for “somebody who gave me an opportunity and never looked down on me,” he said, smiling and adding that was true even last week when it seemed all of Kansas City wanted “to kind of set me on fire” after fumbles in back-to-back games.
Reid, he said, was telling him, “Bro, just chill. Go out there and do your thing.” Reid reminded the second-year pro that he’s human and mistakes are going to happen, and in the process freed him up to thrive on Sunday (14 carries for 102 yards and a touchdown reception).
Then there was the, uh, less formal way it was expressed by Tyreek Hill, who had 11 catches for 186 yards and three touchdowns.
“It’s (darned) awesome, man, seeing him in the locker room fired up after the game,” he said, adding that it’s surreal to remember being a kid watching him coach the Eagles and “now I’m actually playing for one of the greatest coaches of all time.”
And appropriately stamped on this field, a coach who’s ultimately going to be remembered best and appreciated most for his time with the Chiefs, at 100 wins and counting now.
This story was originally published October 3, 2021 at 6:41 PM.