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Did you know that Andy Reid is the only person in NFL history to have won more than 100 games as the head coach with two different teams?
Reid has won more than 100 games as a head coach with one team in the NFC and the other in the AFC.
Andy Reid was formerly the head coach in Philadelphia. He now coaches in Kansas City. This Sunday in Tempe, Arizona, his former team will be playing his current team for the NFL championship in the Super Bowl.
While the head coach of the NFC’s Philadelphia Eagles (1999-2012), Andy Reid won 130 games (losing 93). That’s an average of ten wins per season.
Upon moving to coach the AFC’s Kansas City Chiefs in 2013, Reid has compiled a record of 117 wins against only 47 losses. At KC, Coach Reid is now averaging more than 11 wins per year and has yet to post a losing record in ten seasons with the Chiefs.
I also had no idea that the 64-year old Andy Reid has quietly moved up to #5 in career wins as an NFL head coach.
His 247 career wins is now just three behind one of America’s best known NFL coaching legends. Tom Landry of the Dallas Cowboys is currently #4 in career wins with 250. Next on the list comes #3 Bill Belichick (New England Patriots – 298), #2 George “Papa Bear” Halas (Chicago Bears – 318 wins), and #1 Don Shula (Baltimore Colts/Miami Dolphins – 328).
Coach Andy Reid has significantly more wins than other well-known coaching legends such as Bill Parcells (#12 overall with 172 wins), Chuck Noll of the Pittsburgh Steelers (#8 – 193 wins), and the man who gave Reid his first NFL job as a tight ends coach at Green Bay, Mike Holmgren (#17 – 161 wins).
After thirteen years in Philadelphia and nine playoff appearances, Andy Reid was fired as head coach of the Eagles after the 2012 season after posting a 4-12 losing record.
There was a good reason for the coach’s only bad season in Philly. Less than a month prior to the start of that 2012 NFL season, Reid’s oldest son, Garrett, died from a heroin overdose in Philadelphia at the age of 29.
Five years earlier, Garrett Reid’s addiction issues became public in 2007 when he admitted he was high on heroin while running a red light while ramming his vehicle into another car.
While in court for sentencing, Garrett Reid told the judge, “I don’t want to die doing drugs. I don’t want to be that kid who was the son of the head coach of the Eagles, who was spoiled and on drugs and OD’ed and just faded into oblivion.”
The younger Reid was imprisoned off and on through 2009. By 2012, Garrett Reid was assisting the Eagles’ strength coaches during the team’s training camp session.
Andy Reid was dealing with the death of his son while he continued to coach the Philadelphia Eagles in the 2012 NFL season.
On December 31, 2012, Andy Reid was terminated by Philadelphia after that 4-12 season. He had never been fired from any job in his thirty years in coaching.
Just five days later on January 4, 2013, Clark Hunt (the Chairman of the Kansas City Chiefs) happily announced the hiring of Andy Reid as the team’s new head football coach. Clark Hunt is the son of Chief’s founder, Lamar Hunt.
In the 2012 season, the Kansas City Chiefs posted a woeful 2-14 record. They released their coach, Romeo Crennel, and then learned of Andy Reid’s dismissal from Philadelphia.
Clark Hunt wanted to see if Andy Reid was ready to move to the Midwest to coach the Chiefs.
He and Reid spent an entire day together getting to know each other. Clark Hunt already knew that Reid was a great coach. He was trying to determine if Andy Reid was mentally ready to continue coaching so soon after the loss of his son and a very difficult football season in Philadelphia.
Hunt said, “I could tell in the interview that he had a clear vision for how he liked to operate, and I think that comes from experience, obviously, but I also think that’s just his personality. He communicates very well, is highly intelligent and an excellent teacher.”
In his first season with the Kansas City Chiefs, Andy Reid’s team went 11-5 and earned a spot in the AFC playoffs. Since his hiring, the Chiefs have never had a losing season in Reid’s ten years as head coach.
Andy Reid is from a middle class neighborhood in Los Angeles. He liked playing baseball and basketball as a youngster. When he reached the eighth grade, Reid’s oldest brother (ten years Andy’s senior) became a football coach at the school. Since 13-year old Andy Reid was already over 6 feet tall and weighed around 200 pounds, Reid’s older brother demanded that his little brother should play on his football team.
The 13-year old Andy Reid became briefly famous for winning his age group during an ABC Monday Night Football telecast.
In the Los Angeles Rams’ Punt-Pass-and Kick” competition, Reid was too big for the junior-sized uniforms given to the competitors. The Rams locker room staff allowed Andy to wear the #34 jersey of reserve running back Les Josephson during the halftime competition.
An exceptional student, Andy Reid still preferred playing baseball and basketball than being an offensive lineman on the high school football team. After Reid didn’t earn a scholarship to play for his favorite team (USC), Reid attended Glendale Junior College for one season and performed well enough to be named to the “All Conference” team.
Andy Reid was recruited to attend Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. Though he was not a Mormon upon arrival at BYU in 1977, he would soon become a member of the Church of Latter Day Saints in 1979.
Before arriving in college, Andy Reid had been taking notes daily since his junior year in high school. He enjoyed journaling his daily life and wrote every day without fail. At BYU, Andy Reid became an English major and also studied Journalism. He was asked by the Provo Daily Herald to write a weekly column for the local newspaper.
Reid said, “I wrote about our guys and had fun with it. I’m not going to tell you I was a great writer, but it was fun to do. I had a dream when I was a kid to write for Sports Illustrated, but it never worked out that way,”
However, Reid’s college football coach saw the makings of an outstanding future coach. By the time Andy Reid’s senior year rolled around, BYU head coach Lavell Edwards implored that he should give coaching a try.
Coach Edwards remarked, “We’d be out there practicing and working, and there’d be questions coming up on how to pick up a certain blitz. I noticed a lot of times [Reid] was helping the guard, the tackle or the center next to him, to make sure they understood what to do if there was some kind of stunt or whatever they did. I remember saying at the time that this guy’s got an unusual feel and knowledge of the game. The more I watched him, I realized this guy could be a very good coach.”
While at Brigham Young, Andy Reid met his future wife, Tammy, while taking a PE class together. Tammy (a Physics major) recalled that Reid was very shy and reluctant to ask her for a first date. They married upon graduating in 1981.
Years later, Andy Reid revealed some solid advice for married men.
“Every day is a special day. I call her my girlfriend for that reason. You never lose interest if you do that, right, you guys out there? Call them your girlfriend and you always do special things for them.”
After graduation, the young married couple entered the U-Haul frequent renters program for young college football coaches.
After one season as a graduate assistant at BYU (where he earned a Master’s degree), Andy Reid’s first assistant coaching job came as an offensive line coach with San Francisco State University. The Gators (which abandoned its football program in 1994) played in NCAA Division II using non-scholarship players.
Tammy Reid said, “Every Tuesday and Thursday, the coaches would sell hot dogs to earn money for the football program. Andrew would sell hot dogs in the middle of the commons, you know, out in the middle of campus.”
The money from the weekly hot dog sales went to the football department to help cover the cost of operations.
Andrew (I mean…Andy) also took a part-time job as a baseball umpire to help make ends meet at home.
Tammy recalled. “The games started after dinner so he would make $10 or $15 a game and he did that as much as he could. I remember the night after our first son Britt was born. He came to see me in his gear, wearing the dark navy pants, the light blue shirt, the little pouch with the brush to wipe off the plate, and the clicker.”
After three seasons in San Francisco, Andy and Tammy Reid (and their growing young family) moved on to Northern Arizona, UT-El Paso, the University of Missouri, and his first NFL job as an assistant coach handling tight ends for Mike Holmgren in Green Bay.
Mike Holmgren had been an assistant coach at BYU while Andy Reid was a player and graduate assistant. Reid credits Mike Holmgren with helping him get his first coaching job at San Francisco State. Holmgren was now giving Andy Reid a chance to become a coach in the NFL.
Reid quickly became more involved in the entire Green Bay offensive scheme. He would become the Packers’ quarterbacks coach and, later, the offensive coordinator. Andy Reid and Green Bay Packers’ Hall-of-Fame quarterback Brett Favre worked together for several years.
During his seven years (1992-1999) in Green Bay, the Packers made the playoffs six times. They won a Super Bowl in 1996 (beating New England) and returned again in 1997 (losing to the Denver Broncos).
Andy Reid then landed his first NFL head coaching job with Philadelphia in 1999. The Eagles had finished 3-13 the year before and fired Ray Rhodes after the season ended.
After a disappointing 5-11 first year in Philadelphia, Andy Reid’s Eagles soared to qualify for five straight playoff appearances.
Andy Reid’s teams in Philly would make it into one Super Bowl (losing to New England). However, the team also lost in four other NFC Championship games during his 13 years with the Eagles.
For Kansas City Chiefs’ Chairman Clark Hunt, the hiring of Andy Reid just five days after he was fired from Philadelphia must still be incredibly gratifying.
For Andy Reid and his family, having a new beginning in Kansas City seems to have been just what they needed, too. This Sunday in Tempe, Arizona, Andy Reid’s Kansas City Chiefs will play in their third Super Bowl in just ten years after he became the team’s head coach.
This quiet NFL coach (who may be more well-known to the public for doodling mustaches on unsuspecting football players during a State Farm insurance commercial) continues to make his “mark” as one of the greatest coaches of all time.