Super Bowl 57: Andy Reid vs. Nick Sirianni is battle of seasoned vs. inexperienced

The pre-game hype and madness of a Super Bowl Week in the Phoenix area, which included a blockbuster NBA trade that overshadowed even the big game buildup for a day, has drawn to a close. All that's left is to play Super Bowl 57 at Glendale's State Farm Stadium.

This one could be close and relatively low in points. The Eagles are very slight favorites, according to most betting odds, but the Chiefs have NFL Most Valuable Player Patrick Mahomes, star tight end Travis Kelce, a dynamic and physical running back in rookie Isiah Pacheco and a defense that isn't full of well known names, but largely feels overlooked and will play with an edge.

This Super Bowl also brings together two head coaches with different styles in Kansas City's longtime NFL field boss Andy Reid and first-year Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni. Reid has 21 career postseason victories, trailing only Bill Belichick's 31 for the most playoff wins by a head coach all time. Including the postseason, Reid has the fifth-most total wins by a head coach in NFL history with 268, trailing only Belichick (329) and Pro Football Hall of Famers Don Shula (347), George Halas (324) and Tom Landry (270).

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Reid, at 64 years and 330 days old on Sunday, can become the fourth-oldest head coach to win a Super Bowl. One of the storylines of the game is that Reid was the Eagles' head coach from 1999 to 2012 before taking over the Chiefs in 2013.

"I don't know if I dreamt it, but they're a good football team. They're a well-run organization," Reid said of the Eagles. "I was lucky enough to have an opportunity to coach there. I have fond memories of it. But once you start the game, all of that goes aside and it's the teams, the players playing against each other. The coaches coaching against each other. So you can kind of take the uniforms off, and then it's the skill and the ability of that group."

Sirianni, 41, can become the ninth head coach to win a Super Bowl within his first two seasons, and the first since former Eagles coach Doug Pederson led Philadelphia to the championship in 2017.

There is a connection between Reid and Sirianni, beyond being Eagles head coaches past and present. When Reid took over as Chiefs head coach after the 2012 season, his last in Philly, Sirianni had just finished his fourth season as a Kansas City assistant coach.

He spent 2012 as Kansas City's wide receivers coach, the third different position he'd had on staff since his arrival in 2009. And about 10 years ago, when Reid took over, he decided not to retain Sirianni.

Of course, Sirianni didn't let the temporary setback ruin his future in coaching. In 2021 he was named Eagles head coach after a stint with the San Diego (now Los Angeles) Chargers and three seasons as offensive coordinator of the Indianapolis Colts.

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"Obviously we weren't good enough in Kansas City when we left there," Sirianni said this week. "That's why Coach Reid came in. He's done a phenomenal job. One of the best coaches of all time. And what I always remember is that obviously when you're getting let go at a place, you're down in that moment, right? I just remember him bringing me in, telling me that his assistant head coach was the wide receivers coach. That he had a guy.

"But I remember him lifting me up in that moment, telling me he'd heard good things, knowing that I'd get back on my feet. He gave me strength when I was down and I always admired that."

Sirianni said Reid gathered all of the coaches that were not retained and told them face to face.

"He kind of gave me a blueprint on what I had to do when I became the head football coach for the Eagles," Sirianni said.

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Reid has the established and experienced quarterback and an innovative offense constructed from his playing days in college under BYU offensive genius LaVell Edwards, various college jobs, then working under Mike Holmgren in the 1990s before finally getting his own NFL team to run in 1999. He'll have to dial up the creativity against a tough Eagles defense that specializes in rushing the passer.

"The o-lines versus the d-lines on both teams ends up being kind of the thing that wins or loses games," Reid said. "In the Super Bowl it will be magnified the most. So that's what you'll see."

Sirianni has a rising star in quarterback Jalen Hurts, and uses analytics to a large extent to help with selecting the right play calls and manage games. The Eagles love to use Hurts on fourth down for quarterback sneaks, and their offense is well balanced.

"There's always going to be a subplot or something like that," Sirianni said. "The most important thing is that we stick to the process that got us here so we can put ourselves in the position to win the game."

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Chiefs, Eagles coaches set to match wits in Super Bowl 57