The game had been over for almost four hours, and Andy Reid made his way through the lobby of the team hotel, with the Chiefs’ party picking up steam an easy Patrick Mahomes throw away. Every few feet, someone was stopping the coach—outfitted for the Scottsdale night in a Hank Stram-style blazer emblazoned with the K.C. arrowhead, bright red tie and pocket square—for a handshake, hug or a congrats, and it continued as he and his wife, Tammy, made their way past a set of ropes and into a VIP area, and well into the evening.
The sheer volume of well-wishes underscored something significant on the evening Reid won his second Super Bowl, and that something kept showing up after the game.
Earlier, in a locker room choked out with cigar smoke and soaked in sprayed champagne, Chiefs VP of sports medicine and performance Rick Burkholder, sitting on a folding chair, generated a similar scene simply by pulling assistant athletic trainers Julie Frymyer and David Glover close, to explain how Mahomes made it through Super Bowl LVII after reaggravating the high ankle sprain he initially suffered three weeks earlier.
