How Much Longer Will Kansas City’s Coaching Legend Reign?
Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid is a goliath in pro football. Affectionately known as “Big Red,” Reid is famous for his large stature and even larger accolades as a coach in the NFL. Coach Reid has three Super Bowl rings as a head coach, the most wins in franchise history for not one, but two different teams, and the fourth most wins in NFL coaching history. He’s even become well-known in the mainstream, both for his accomplishments and for his comedic chops in those terrible State Farm ads. There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that Andy Reid will be a first-ballot Hall of Famer once he hangs up his hat and clipboard. The question is, when will that day actually come?
While most Chiefs fans, myself included, would be happy to offer Andy Reid a lifetime contract, with room for extension should Reid or a member of his staff become well-versed in the dark arts of necromancy, that’s just not how business is done. In reality, Kansas City has Reid’s services for at least the next few seasons. Last year, the Chiefs signed Big Red to a big-money extension, paying him $100 million over five years, and ensuring that Reid would be the head shot caller in KC through the 2028-29 NFL season. The obvious question with that in mind is, what happens after February 2029?
The first factor that comes to mind is Andy Reid’s age. Reid will be 70 years old once his contract expires in early 2029. While that’s far from the relative youth of the Sean McVays of the league, it's hardly ancient. New Raiders head coach Pete Carroll is already 73 years old right now, and the powers that be in Las Vegas clearly have faith in him to build their future. Bill Belichick, Reid’s longtime legendary contemporary and rival, was still leading New England at the age of 71 and will continue his head coaching career this fall at the University of North Carolina. It stands to reason that by the end of his current contract, age will be just a number to both Reid and the executives in KC.
Another factor to examine is burnout. Will Andy Reid still want to coach at the age of 70,71,72, and onwards? It would be a massive surprise if Reid didn’t want to keep coaching, honestly. Andy Reid has been a coach at the college or pro level every single year of his life since he was 24 years old back in 1982, when he began his illustrious career as a graduate assistant at BYU. With that in mind, combined with the fact that Reid has been exposed to both the pressures and paychecks of being an NFL head coach since 1999, it feels like if Reid was ever going to fall out of love with coaching football, it would have happened by now.
That means that the only real finality to Reid’s coaching career would be decided on the field itself. Most head coaches in the NFL see their tenure end due to simply losing too much, too badly, for too long. That hardly feels applicable to Andy Reid, who is a stranger to the concept of losing, only posting a losing season three times in his 26 years of being a head coach. Considering that Andy Reid has only ever posted winning seasons during his entire time in Kansas City, should still have Patrick Mahomes as his QB for many years to come, and just came the closest any coach has to accomplishing a Super Bowl three peat, it seems highly unlikely that Reid should end his career due to poor performance.
Instead, Reid may find himself facing retirement on the complete opposite and much rarer end of the on-field results spectrum. Many aging legends of the NFL have found themselves wanting to ride off into the sunset following a championship win. John Elway, Peyton Manning, and Michael Strahan are just a handful of names that decided to walk away from the game after winning it all. There is even speculation that Chiefs legend Travis Kelce would have hung up his cleats if Kansas City had actually brought home their third Lombardi trophy in three years. If February 2029 comes around and Andy Reid’s Chiefs win the championship one last time, could Big Red decide to go out on the highest of high notes?
What puts Andy Reid’s future and legacy in a very unique position is his opportunity to break records and make history. As it stands today, Reid is the fourth-winningest head coach in NFL history, with 301 total wins. Reid also stands in fourth place in total regular season wins and second place in total playoff wins. With how good the Chiefs have been and should continue to be under Reid over the years, he stands a very decent chance at reaching number one all-time on at least one of those aforementioned win records. Maybe it's wrong to think of Andy Reid’s remaining time in the league in terms of seasons or years, when we should be looking at it as a countdown towards placing his name atop the records held by the likes of Bill Belichick, George Halas, and Don Shula.
No one, perhaps not even Andy Reid himself, will quite know that we’ve reached the end until it actually happens. Many times, in both football and life, how things end isn’t really up to us. If all goes well, the legendary career of Andy Reid will come to the exact conclusion that he would be most happy with. In the meantime, there’s still a decent amount of football to be played, records to break, and Super Bowls to win. I, for one, will just sit back and enjoy the ride, however long it turns out to be.
