Remember when everyone thought the Chiefs should fire Andy Reid?
Remember when a bunch of inhabitants of the Chiefs Kingdom were calling for the heads of Andy Reid, Bob Sutton and Alex Smith a couple of months ago?
I’m going to say it because I’m a semi-retired Chiefs blogger and I don’t get to hop on here and gloat very often anymore.
Following KC’s gut-wrenching loss to the Chicago Bears, I wrote an article exploring the growing discontent among Chiefs fans. In the article, I examined two drives that I believed primarily cost Kansas City two wins.
"If any of these things happen, the 1-4 Kansas City Chiefs could very well be the 3-2 Kansas City Chiefs. Instead of talking about the team securing the #1 pick in the 2016 NFL Draft, we’d be talking about how KC’s only two losses came on the road vs. two potential Super Bowl contenders. The Chiefs would also have three winnable games coming up against the Vikings, Ben Roethlisberger-less Steelers and the winless Lions."
While at the time I was as frustrated as everyone else about the way the Chiefs’ season was shaking out, I wasn’t so sure I wanted the team to fire Andy Reid. Despite the team’s struggles, I still believed Reid was an excellent NFL head coach and that his overall coaching history indicated that even if the 2015 season was going to be a bust, the Chiefs would win under Big Red more often than they would lose.
"The two years before Reid, Dorsey, Smith and Sutton arrived, KC was 9-23. And while the team should be getting better in year three of this regime rather than worse, we are only five games into the season. It is possible, that despite some idiots declaring the 2015 season over that the Chiefs will turn things around. History says that Andy Reid’s teams win more often than they lose. While it might not end in a playoff appearance, there might be more left to this 2015 Chiefs season than we all think right now."
Full disclosure; that link in the quote above is to a eulogy I wrote for the Chiefs season following the loss of Jamaal Charles to a torn ACL, a point some commenter’s missed the first time around.
While I believed that KC’s playoffs hopes were likely dashed, I did have a hunch that the Chiefs would somewhat right the ship and win some games down the stretch.
Shockingly, I was not universally agreed with in the comments.
Still, not even I, in my in my infinite wisdom, could have imagined that the Chiefs would rattle off eight-straight victories.
Just like when the Chiefs were losing, the credit for KC’s the turnaround must be distributed equally between the players and the coaches, including Andy Reid. The fact that the Chiefs’ schedule hasn’t exactly been murder’s row is irrelevant. Winning eight games in the NFL is really, really difficult. No matter how talented a team is, even bad teams can jump up and snakebite a playoff contender.
Remember when a terrible Romeo Crennel-led Chiefs team knocked off an undefeated Packers team? Heck, remember earlier this season when the Philadelphia Eagles defeated the New England Patriots’ only a week after getting curb-stomped on Thanksgiving Day by the lowly Detroit Lions?
What the Chiefs have done this season is remarkable. Andy Reid and his staff kept a young football team focused. A lesser team would have imploded. The Chiefs fought back.
The job is not done, of course. While Kansas City should easily take care of business Sunday when the three-win Cleveland Browns come to Arrowhead, the examples above should remind us all that no victory is certain.
If the New York Jets lost to the New England Patriots next week and KC beats Cleveland, the Chiefs are playoff bound.
Still, KC had better stay focused. A slip up against the Browns could be disastrous for the Chiefs. The Oakland Raiders are playing pretty good football right now and Kansas City would be wise to avoid having its season come down to a Week 17 game at Arrowhead.
If focus and resiliency is what the Chiefs need to complete one of the most remarkable regular season’s in franchise history, they’d be hard-pressed to find a better man to lead them than Andy Reid.
In a league built for parity, it is extremely difficult to win consistently. The franchises that do win consistently, like the New England Patriots and Pittsburgh Steelers, are among the most patient in all of sports.
So next time the Chiefs hit a rough patch under Andy Reid, let’s take a deep breath and remember the man’s winning history.
And let’s remember the 2015 season, too.