Why the Chiefs expect Andy Reid to coach for years even amid retirement chatter

Back in September when Andy Reid notched his 270th career victory to tie Tom Landry for fourth place on the NFL career wins list, it triggered a thought that was part imagination and part logic:

Reid had established a clear trajectory toward overtaking the three men in front of him and becoming the winningest coach in NFL history — good health willing.

That prospect may seem a secondary matter here and now. On Sunday, the Chiefs seek to cement a claim to one of the most dominant eras in league history by becoming the first team to repeat as Super Bowl champions in nearly two decades and win a third title in five seasons.

But the moment also will trickle immediately into what’s looming just over the horizon, as of Monday: the considerable matter of the long run.

And that evokes the questions of not merely Reid’s ability to ascend further toward that rarefied record of 347 victories, but also how long he’s inclined to continue on the job.

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‘You think he wouldn’t tell me?’

Unsubstantiated chatter that he may soon consider retiring has had a certain ambient presence at the Super Bowl this week, evidently conjured anew out of a bewildering apparent misunderstanding a year ago and a resurfacing of curious speculations over the last month or so.

Now, between Reid’s age, 65, and the 24-hour shockwave last month that left fixtures Belichick, Pete Carroll and Nick Saban no longer on the job, Chiefs general manager Brett Veach said Thursday that “it’s probably an easy connect-the-dot there.”

But only from afar. Or by wishful thinking around the league.

Or the slim possibility that someone from the outside looking in has gained more insight on Reid’s mindset than the likes of Veach, quarterback Patrick Mahomes and Chiefs chairman and CEO Clark Hunt. Though it’s hard to know how they’d publicly approach it if something were up, none of them appears remotely concerned Reid’s retirement is imminent.

“I talk to him all the time, and Coach is one of those guys that (is) such a forward thinker, you think he wouldn’t tell me about (that) he’s stepping down (or) retiring?” Veach said.

Noting Reid’s love of Kansas City and connection with Mahomes, among other aspects of the job, the GM added, “I think this is the setup every coach wants … I can’t see him stepping away any time soon.”

With one asterisk: Reid is a stout man who loves to talk about food and eating and is a living, breathing sleep-deprivation experiment. It’s long been understood he seldom sleeps more than three hours a night, as assistant coach Tom Melvin confirmed Thursday, noting that in 25 years of working for Reid in Philadelphia and Kansas City he’s never beaten Reid to the office in the wee hours.

“Now, listen, the reality is, you are 65, not 25, so it’s not like you’re coaching another 20 more years,” Veach said. “But I still think he has a really good window of (another) four or five years, God willing and health stays on the up and up.”

‘I’m highly doubtful’

Veach got into the pro football business as Reid’s administrative assistant and has a deep understanding of his thinking. Mahomes is the same only more so with what at times seems a mind-meld approaching telepathy with Reid.

And he all but laughed when asked Thursday about the possibility of Reid leaving soon.

“I’m highly doubtful,” Mahomes said. “Because he enjoys it every single day. He loves it. And he comes to work with that energy every single day. So it would be very surprising to me, and I haven’t gotten any sense of that in any sense.”

If you do have a sense of Reid, you know the joy, identity and fulfillment he finds in coaching. For that matter, the profession even has offered him refuge and therapy in the darkest of times.

Three days after his son Garrett died of a drug overdose in 2012, he returned to his job coaching the Eagles, telling Philadelphia reporters it was “the right thing to do.” Later, when some wondered if he would be best-served to take time off after the Eagles fired him, Reid took the job with the Chiefs days later.

“I love doing what I’m doing, and I thought it was good medicine,” Reid said in 2020. “It helps you through. There’s nothing like the camaraderie, as long as my wife and family were OK, I was good with it. So I kept on rolling.”

Beyond any unknown developments with his health, then, it’s almost impossible to fathom why Reid would retire any time soon.

His team is a perennial championship contender, and he’s in perfect harmony with the front office. In Mahomes, he’s got the quarterback he was born to coach and who animates his vision.

Moreover, he craves the competition, creativity and sheer process of the job and cherishes the opportunity to touch so many lives — from staff and players to the Chiefs fans who suffered so long before his arrival.

His frequent mantra of “looking forward to the challenge of playing” whatever team is next sounds trite. But it’s also a sustaining truth for him.

‘Today’s not the day’

Despite all that, murmurs of an impending retirement have been a sporadic point of speculation since last year at this time.

That’s when Jay Glazer of Fox Sports said on the Super Bowl pre-game show that Reid had told him, “I’m not getting any younger,” and, “I have a decision I’ll have to make after this game.”

The report was a jarring contrast to anything Reid had said or projected before. And after the Chiefs beat the Eagles that day, Reid waved it off as a misinterpretation.

For reasons that are unclear, though, Reid hasn’t exactly been adamant about his future plans over these last few weeks, a tendency that has left it at least a semi-open question.

When Belichick lost his job in January almost simultaneously with Pete Carroll, 72, and Nick Saban, 72, leaving theirs, Reid essentially dismissed the question by saying he hadn’t even thought about retiring.

“I’m old,” he said then. “But not that old.”

At Super Bowl Opening Night on Monday at Allegiant Stadium, his response to a query about retirement was that his mom and dad told him, “you’ll know when it’s time. And I’m ready to go right now.”

That sounded funny at first, but he meant “ready to go” like let’s go in terms of the game.

When I asked him to clarify what he’d said, he reiterated that he’d know when it’s time and with a smile added, “Today’s not the day.” He offered another elusive version of that thought when asked again Thursday.

Just the same, what seems a lingering element of vagueness doesn’t seem to be distressing team chairman and CEO Hunt. At the Chiefs’ hotel the other day, I asked him what his sense of Reid’s timeline might be.

“I don’t have a sense for what he’s thinking; I do know he’s really engaged and enjoying it, and I have no sense that he’s going to be ready to retire in the near future,” Hunt said. “But in terms of how long he goes, I don’t know.

“Certainly, I hope it’s a long time in the future, but we’ll just have to see as we go.”

To a follow-up question about whether there is a succession plan in place, Hunt indicated he didn’t think he had anything immediate to consider.

“The good news is,” he said, “I’ve felt it’s too early to start worrying about that at this point.”

‘In the deed the glory’

Short of a startling surprise, then, Reid’s legacy won’t just include whatever plays out on Sunday but also in the foreseeable future.

It’s already made for a Pro Football Hall of Fame profile, particularly via his 11 seasons with the Chiefs since being fired by the Eagles after the 2012 season.

If the Chiefs win on Sunday, Reid will tie with Bill Walsh and Joe Gibbs for the third-most Super Bowl victories on his ledger and trail only Belichick’s six and Chuck Noll’s four.

A win also would be another step toward a loftier tier entirely: to win more games than anyone in the history of the league.

For so long, Shula’s gold standard of 347 wins appeared insurmountable for Reid. Meanwhile, Belichick seemed destined to surpass it and make the achievement all the more untouchable for Reid.

But the dynamics went into flux between Belichick’s losing record since Tom Brady left — underscored by a 4-13 season that left him at 333 wins and without a job approaching his 72nd birthday — and Reid orchestrating what he’s essentially done every year since Patrick Mahomes became QB1 in 2018:

Following five seasons of winning an average of 15 games (including the postseason), the Chiefs have won 14 entering the Super Bowl. That puts Reid, with his now-283 wins, on track to eclipse Shula in six years even if his teams descended to an average of 10 wins annually.

As I understand, or at least perceive, Reid, I don’t believe he’d be motivated by that sort of goal.

Instead, he’s immersed in the moment, reminiscent to me of the words on the southwest corner of the University of Nebraska’s Memorial Stadium: “Not the victory but the action; Not the goal but the game; In the deed the glory.”

He’s brought so much of that to the Chiefs. And regardless of whether there’s more to come Sunday, it seems we can expect that to continue for some years yet, unless something drastic changes that.

“I’m not naive and know it can’t last forever,” Veach said. “To me, I think he’s got another good four or five years.”