It’s not a remotely original thought to imagine that one day Andy Reid may actually be considered the greatest coach of all time when his career is finished. He has four fewer Super Bowl championships than Bill Belichick and 48 fewer wins, but the pair are separated by seven years and Reid is just now rounding into the athletic prime of Patrick Mahomes. Should Reid have seven or eight good seasons out of Mahomes’s age 28-38 years (a notion that is not impossible, but we have to be realistic about injuries and wear; only Tom Brady has truly escaped the ravages of time on the body), he would comfortably pass Don Shula, who has 347 wins to Reid’s 273.
Reid has taken Alex Smith to the divisional round of the playoffs, Jeff Garcia to the divisional round of the playoffs, Donovan McNabb to the Super Bowl, and Mahomes to five AFC championship games and three Super Bowls. This is the critical factoid that makes this a Good Sports Argument given that, outside of a combination of Vinny Testaverde and Mark Rypien and Mac Jones, Belichick has never even appeared in a playoff game without Tom Brady. The slowing down of the Patriots in 2023, and the acceleration of what you might call the Chiefs’ dynasty now that Kansas City is off to a comfortable 5–1 start after their 19–8 win over the Broncos on Thursday Night Football, places this thought back on our plates.
It’s an entry point into what we believe actually qualifies one to be a good coach. It’s also how we weigh a few factors such as how much we value a coach with Belichick’s emotional intelligence to keep a singular marriage to one quarterback lasting two decades; how much we value a coach with Reid’s flexibility in raising the games of multiple quarterbacks; whether that same coach, much like other coaches who have been branded quarterback whisperers, was simply fortunate to have bumped into several greats along the way (think Bruce Arians, who worked with Peyton Manning, Ben Roethlisberger, Andrew Luck, Carson Palmer and Tom Brady; is Reid a whisperer, or was McNabb, Michael Vick, Smith and Mahomes pretty damn good on their own?).
