Chiefs’ Andy Reid says he once ran a play that had been designed by a janitor
At the start of Chiefs training camp, coach Andy Reid admitted he does some work while on vacation.
Reid loves his job, particularly designing plays.
“Listen, I take my work with me and I spent a couple hours a day working on things on that time,” Reid told reporters of his vacation. “I enjoy doing that. Some people read novels. I look at plays.”
Not every play is from the mind of Andy Reid.
He has been known to let the Chiefs players design plays and if he likes them, he’ll use them in a game.
During Super Bowl LIV, the Chiefs ran a play Reid found from the 1948 Rose Bowl.
While on the “Green Light with Chris Long” podcast this week, Reid said he even once used a play that was given to him by a member of a cleaning crew.
“I took one from a janitor one time at Green Bay,” Reid said. “I mean I’ll take it from anywhere.”
Reid was an assistant coach for the Packers from 1992-98, and he was the assistant head coach the final two seasons. He explained how he ended up using a play from a member of the cleaning crew.
“It was a mom and pop group that cleaned our facility forever,” Reid said. “Then they worked game day and they go up and do the suites at halftime and kind of tidy them up. So this guy kept telling me, he was the owner of the company, the father of the family, and he goes, ‘You know, I’ve got this play for you.’ And he kept telling me this over and over.
“Finally, I said, ‘OK, here’s a card, draw up the play.’ And he drew up the play and I go, ‘Dang, that’s pretty good.’”
It was such a good play that Reid used it in a Packers game.
“We moved one person but for the most part it was his play,” Reid said. “We put it in and right before halftime, his family came down, they stayed on the sideline on the field. And we called the play just before halftime and it scored. And he starts hitting his wife and he’s going, ‘That’s my play! That’s my play!’ And she’s going, ‘Yeah, right. Yeah, sure it is.’
“We’ll take it from anywhere.”
Reid was asked the name of the play but he couldn’t remember it. He joked: “Janitor 57 or something.”
Here is Reid on the play and Eric Bieniemy.
