Calling beloved Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid a “fraud” sounds like a quick way to spark outrage across the NFL landscape. But when former Dallas Cowboys head coach Jason Garrett applied that label to the three-time Super Bowl champion, he didn’t mean it as an insult to Reid.
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“I often tell people that you’re a fraud,” Garrett told Reid on Coach2Coach. “And I say it as a compliment because people see you on the sidelines. They see you in press conferences. You’re jovial. People love you. You’re a father figure, you’re a grandfather figure. You’re old school. And I’ve been to your practices. I’ve played against your teams. Demanding, detailed, all of that. But then you balance that with this new-school approach where these players want to run through the wall for you.”
This is not the first time Garrett gave Reid this label. On The Dan Patrick Show, the former called Reid a fraud once again, bringing up the two different sides of the coaching. He can shoot commercials with Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce and dress up as Santa Claus. But on the field, Andy Reid is all about business.
“Shirts are tucked in. They run. They hit. He threw the GPS’s away 10 years ago. He’s not counting how many steps and workloads and all that stuff. They’re running. They’re doing long drives, 18-play, 20-play, 22-play drives in practice. It’s an old school mentality.
“You can coach them hard. You can develop relationships with them. And that’s one of the great takeaways from it. You know, greatness comes when high standards, high accountability, but I also develop relationships with these guys. The nuance of leadership, I think that’s what the best guys do.”
When he coached the Philadelphia Eagles, Reid used to make the players line up for practice for two 2.5-hour sessions daily. But following the 2003 season, the league terminated the twice-a-day practice routines. But that hasn’t changed the intensity of Andy Reid’s practices. His camps are still considered one of the most difficult in the league. According to The Athletic’s Nate Taylor, the veteran Chiefs are always telling newer ones about how rigorous things can get.
Donovan Smith, who signed with Kansas City in 2023, wondered how hard it could really be. Nine weeks into camp, he said that Reid’s system was definitely an “adjustment,” and they “work [their] tails off.”
However, demanding greatness does not mean Reid lets his veteran stars completely burn themselves out. Just last week, Reid revealed he had to “yank” Kelce out of practice multiple times because the veteran tight end kept pushing himself beyond his limit. Patrick Mahomes’ situation is also being closely looked at to prevent any injuries to his star quarterback.
Reid has mastered the nuanced leadership needed to build an unstoppable NFL dynasty. But is it enough for the Chiefs to secure their next Super Bowl win?