Andy Reid has confirmed that he will return to be the head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs next season, meaning that he will lead the way for a three-point attempt, after the team’s Super Bowl LVIII victory over the San Francisco 49ers in Las Vegas.
Big Red had been quiet on his future throughout most of the playoffs and refused to clarify what’s next for him in the week leading to Super Sunday, as he and the Chiefs were solely interested on finishing the task at hand: becoming back-to-back Super Bowl champs’ for the first time in 20 years (since the 2004 New England Patriots).
And they did just that by narrowly defeating the 49ers in a game decided by the thinnest of margins in OT (22-25).
Speaking to Jason Lieser, of the Chicago Sun-Times, during the Chiefs’ Super Bowl celebrations at Allegiant Stadium, Reid, who had been shoved by tight end Travis Kelce during the game, said that he will be coaching next season: ‘I haven’t had time to think about it, but yeah, sure.’
That means a 26th season as an NFL head coach for the 65-year-old, Angelino.
Chiefs’ head coach Andy Reid will return for one more season to try and win the three-peat
Reid is now a three-time Super Bowl champ after Sunday’s win against the San Francisco 49ers
After starting this now-completed season 6-1, the Chiefs lost five of eight games. At 9-6, they even had a shot to miss the playoffs and ended up with their most losses since 2017.
No chance Reid would let them stumble further. The Chiefs won the next two games to clinch their eighth straight AFC West title and kept on winning in the playoffs, beating Miami at home in the wild card round, going on the road to beat Buffalo in the divisional round and No. 1-seeded Baltimore in the AFC championship game.
‘Coach Reid just challenging every single person in this building to up the ante just one more step and just keep taking it up a notch every week from here on out,’ Kelce once said in the buildup to this year’s Super Bowl. ‘That’s why we love the big guy. You never fall astray from that kind of mentality no matter how many losses you have, no matter how close the games are and you’re just not finishing them.
‘Coach Reid does a great job of re-channeling that mindset every single week and presenting a challenge against the defense or the offense or just the team we’re going against in the near future. This week, no better time to challenge everybody in that building. He’s got everyone fired up.’
Back then, Reid credited Mahomes and Kelce for their leadership, setting the tone for how the team should practice. He also praised general manager Brett Veach for adding players who fit that mentality.
‘You’re not going to dog it with Pat Mahomes going full speed, Kelce going full speed,’ Reid said. ‘They’re not going to allow you to do that first of all. Then you watch them, and you watch how they practice, you know it’s not a fit if they can’t do that. Brett is not going to bring in guys that dog, jog, whatever you want to call it.’
Reid has always insisted that he would not find the same success that he has in Kansas City without the deadly combo of Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce
The Chiefs lost a Thursday night at Denver to a team that came in 2-5. Two weeks later, they lost a Super Bowl rematch at home to Philadelphia when Marquez Valdes-Scantling dropped what should have been a go-ahead touchdown pass late in the game.
There was another prime-time loss at Green Bay on Dec. 3 followed by a loss at home to the Bills when Kadarius Toney’s TD off a lateral from Kelce was wiped out by an offside penalty on Toney.
A loss to the Raiders on Christmas was the third straight defeat at home and led Reid to make some adjustments. The offensive coaching staff decided to simplify a complex offense and five wins later the Chiefs were back in the Super Bowl for the fourth time in five years.
‘I think it gave our guys a nice little – for (lack of) a better term a wakeup call that, ”Listen we need to step things up here. Things aren’t just going to fall in our lap,” Reid said of the loss to Las Vegas.
‘We’re taking everyone’s best shot, here’s a team that went through some adversity, and they stepped up and were able to present themselves like they did. We were able to learn from it and move on. I felt all along though (that) we had the ability to do that, like I said, we need a little kick in the tail there.’
Reid had already won two Super Bowls before Sunday night’s third, as well as more games than any coach in the history of the Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles. He’ll end up in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, regardless of his win against the 49ers.
Now that the Chiefs have won, it will be hard to argue that the 65-year-old Reid isn’t getting even better with age.