After a down year, should the Kansas City Chiefs consider moving on from head coach Andy Reid? I’ll give you the short answer: "No". The longer answer is, "No, but I guess we’ll entertain the idea."
NFL fans are fickle. It’s a win-now league, and if your team isn’t winning now, the torches and pitchforks come out. Never mind if your team has won nine straight division titles. Never mind if they’ve been to five of the last six Super Bowls, including three in a row. Never mind if they’ve hoisted three Lombardis in that span. Never mind.
“Fire Andy Reid!” shout the most ungrateful and unrealistic fans of Chiefs Kingdom.
Does that mean Andy Reid is immune from criticism for this season? Of course not. He certainly had his fair share of coaching mistakes and failures this year. But to pretend he is on any sort of hot seat is just ridiculous.
Back in 2015, the Chiefs started 1–5. Then they beat the Pittsburgh Steelers at Arrowhead before flying to London to beat the Detroit Lions (shameless brag: I was at both of those games). At 3–5, Clark Hunt announced that no matter how the season went, he wasn’t going to fire Andy Reid. That team didn’t lose the rest of the season and pulled off a shutout of the Texans in the playoffs.
One bad season doesn’t outweigh a decade of dominance under Andy Reid.
Patience matters. Clark Hunt knows that, and it paid off for him—not just that season, but for the next decade as the accolades stacked up. A 6–10 (potentially 6–11) season is bad, but the only reason Andy’s seat should be hot is if he’s seriously considering retirement.
As if we need any more evidence that Reid isn’t going anywhere, consider Mike Tomlin in Pittsburgh. He continued his streak of mediocrity for another year by going at least .500. He hasn’t won a playoff game since—checks notes—2016, and he still somehow has a job.
One bad year doesn’t mean the entire operation needs to be blown up. Even Philadelphia knew that, which is why they kept Andy Reid on longer than they probably should have. They knew the alternative: there aren’t very many coaches better than Andy Reid.
Chiefs Kingdom should know there aren’t many coaches better than Andy Reid. He’s more likely to have a statue built of him outside of Arrowhead (or whatever the new stadium will be called) than he is to be on the hot seat.