The “Andy Reid can’t coach in the playoffs” takes were loaded and ready to fire. Some went off prematurely.
And then something strange happened. He began to. In his own way.
There wasn’t a lot of yelling and screaming and flapping of arms from the veteran coach, but he made sure to make clear to his Chiefs players that all was not well, and they needed to get back to work when they fell into a 24-0 hole to the Texans yesterday.
“He can’t just stand there and say, ‘We got it, we got it,'” Chiefs right tackle Mitchell Schwartz said, via Tim Keown of ESPN.com. “What he said was, ‘You got to keep playing, and keep battling it out.'”
To hear Reid tell it, it was very simple.
“It was about settling down and calming the storm,” Reid said. “No need to panic, just fix the problems.”
They clearly did that, as the Chiefs ripped off touchdowns on seven straight possessions to come back for an amazing 51-31 win over.
But because it’s the playoffs and because it’s Andy Reid, the expectation was different.
He’s seventh on the all-time coaching wins list with 207, and a few months away from passing Paul Brown (213) for sixth. But he’s still below .500 in the postseason (13-14), and he’s never won a Super Bowl, which his critics use to ignore his incredible work over a 21-year career.
But in the face of a game which seemed to validate those prejudices, Reid kept his cool.
“I always think we’re going to be OK,” he said. “Fix the problem and let’s go.”
Asked what was going through his mind when the Texans went up 24-0, he replied: “I was thinking we need to score some points.”
It’s as simple as that.