KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Chiefs were in Las Vegas last weekend for the conclusion of the regular season, which seems about as appropriate a place as any to start this conversation.
But first we have to back track farther — to the preseason. That’s when oddsmakers in Las Vegas initially released the betting numbers for NFL coach of the year, and Chiefs coach Andy Reid was listed at 35-1.
Some four months later, Reid’s team just concluded a 14-3 regular season, the best record in the AFC, which is why they’re the only AFC team sitting at home this weekend, feet up on the sofa, as six of their counterparts hope to join them in the Divisional Round.
So a day after the Chiefs beat the Raiders and secured all that, I strolled into the vast sportsbook at Caesars Palace on the Vegas Strip and peeked at the odds for NFL coach of the year. The board read like this:
— Nick Sirianni, Philadelphia, 1-1
— Kyle Shanahan, San Francisco, 2-1
— Brian Daboll, N.Y. Giants, 7-2
— Doug Pederson, Jacksonville, 10-1
— Zac Taylor, Cincinnati, 20-1
— Dan Campbell, Detroit, 30-1
That’s it.
The entire list.
Listen, there are some worthy candidates outside of Kansas City, but six are more worthy than the guy inside Kansas City? You’ve lost me.
To be clear, the oddsmakers are reacting to the anticipated vote from a collection of 50 media members who determine the Associated Press award, so this isn’t on them. It’s on those who create the narrative.
But why does Reid get lost in it?
That’s the real question, and the coach of the year listing is just one of several avenues in which to ask it. Either way, it has somehow gone overlooked that Reid just completed his most impressive regular season since arriving in Kansas City 10 years ago.
You might recall, after all, this was projected as something of a step-back year for the Chiefs, and not in the way that every team wants to claim they were underdogs. It was reasonable to think the Chiefs might not be as good this year as they had been for the previous four. The volume on a conversation about their division opponents catching them in the race turned up so loud that Reid felt the need to retort, “We’re not chopped liver out there.”
Tyreek Hill left for Miami in a March trade, the same Tyreek Hill who finished this season as Pro Football Focus’ No. 1-ranked wide receiver. According to that metric, in the other words, the Chiefs lost the very best wide receiver in the game last offseason. The guy who broke a franchise record for catches. The guy who commanded $30 million per year and was replaced by four receivers who combined to charge $9 million to the cap this year.
The Chiefs’ defense and special teams actually had more changes than the offense did.
And the Chiefs got better.
They finished 14-3. They secured the No. 1 seed in the AFC — because of their offense.
Reid is responsible for the entire operation, but his fingerprints illuminate most clearly on the pages of the offensive playbook — and the Chiefs finished first in the league in both yards and points. They had not accomplished that since 2018. (Before that, the Chiefs hadn’t done so since 1966.)
In fact, Reid’s best two offensive seasons in Kansas City have followed his most significant changes — turning to Patrick Mahomes as the starting quarterback in 2018, and trading Hill in 2022. The former was a welcome change. The latter required some troubleshooting ... and its technician found the solutions.
Remember the problems the Chiefs had against extra defenders in coverage in 2021? That’s the reason their season ended so abruptly: They were unable to solve a Bengals defense that most simply refused to to blitz. For the 2021 season, Mahomes ranked 20th in the NFL in yards-per-attempt (7.0) in those situations. Teams felt like they finally had a game-plan against the Chiefs.
How would the Chiefs ever solve it? Had the Bengals exposed them? That was a real and consistent talking point.
How quickly we forget.
In those same spots this year — when teams elect to drop defenders in coverage rather than bringing extra rushers — Mahomes finished at 8.2 yards per attempt, tied for second among all quarterbacks. Nobody threw for more yards (4,020) under those circumstances, either.
The Chiefs actually threw the ball deep even less frequently this season, but they averaged a full yard per completion more than a year ago. That’s scheming guys open, and that’s Reid’s primary job.
At season’s end, his offense ranked first in Football Outsiders’ all-encompassing offensive DVOA metric, at 25.2% (18.1% last year). Their pass DVOA was 41.1% (34.7% last year). Those are drastic jumps after drastic alterations.
“He approaches every year with the mindset of, ‘How can we make every person on the team better?’ But I think he’s built this culture regardless,” Mahomes said. “He knows how to get the most out of every single person in this building. That’s why I wasn’t worried at the beginning of the year (whether) we were going to be good. I think I told you all. I’ve seen Coach Reid go an entire season without throwing a touchdown to a receiver and still winning like 11 games.”
It was nine wins, for the record.
But the point stands.
There’s a lot of credit to be shared this year — it’s worth noting the adjustments Mahomes has made and the acquisitions the front office made — but the argument isn’t that we allocate Reid all of it. Can he get some of it? Most of it?
To be fair, he’s widely recognized as being in the very top echelon of NFL coaches, but when it comes time for end-of-the-season honors, he’s absent from the conversation. Is he disqualified before the season even starts? Maybe it’s just taken for granted that this is where the Chiefs’ regular seasons will end.
But it wasn’t at the onset of this year.
The Vegas oddsmakers had the Chiefs winning 10.5 games. They eclipsed that by 3.5 wins — a wider margin than any team other than Philadelphia — and Reid fell off the coach of the year list in the process.
If you’re consistently good, it’s almost impossible to enter this discussion, which apparently means we can cross Reid off the list next season. You know, because the Chiefs were just too good this year.
We can’t ignore the circumstances of how the Chiefs arrived at 14-3 — despite their changes and because of their constants.
In the end, this Chiefs season will be defined by its playoff success, though votes for awards like coach of the year are cast at the conclusion of the regular season.
I get it: If you were to simply pick the best coaches every year, you’d probably wind up picking the same three or four guys every year.
First response: So?
The second: There is a legitimate argument that this is Reid’s best regular season in KC. And if not now, when?
