Reid Receipts: Chiefs Coach Tops NFL Despite Super Bowl Loss

Blair Buswell, the artist who sculpts busts for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, should prepare for one of his most unique pieces. This one will be enshrined with glasses and a manicured mustache.

Andy Reid will more than break the mold, pun intended. The ginger coach likes cheeseburgers and Lombardi trophies, and he’s earned a few of both. His affinity for Super Bowls earned him the perch atop the NFL’s best head coaches as ranked by CBS Sports Monday. It’s the third consecutive season he’s entered ranked No. 1.

“Did his lauded offensive strategies overcome the Chiefs’ utter lack of trench stability in their last Super Bowl effort? No way,” wrote Cody Benjamin on Monday. “But ‘last’ is the key word there; Kansas City has still advanced to five of the last six championship contests under his watch. That's ridiculous, no matter how you slice it.

“Once the chief of football's most colorful big-play machine, Reid's units have since adapted to win on the margins, with Patrick Mahomes in particular excelling as more of a situational artist, alongside makeshift lineups.”

Big Red wore out his red pen with makeshift lineups in 2024, thanks to a turnstile at left tackle and significant injuries to starting running back Isiah Pacheco and both starting receivers, Rashee Rice and Hollywood Brown. Somehow, he led the Chiefs to a 15-1 regular-season record in games they cared about winning (they rested most starters in a meaningless 38-0 loss at Denver).

But other than that loss to the Broncos, Reid could count on his most important starter, Mahomes. The quarterback and head coach have combined to dominate the NFL since the Chiefs made Mahomes their full-time starter to kick off the 2018 season, including an active string of seven berths in the AFC Championship Game.

“I think what makes Coach Reid so special,” Mahomes told Brighid Tully of Complex.com, “is that he continues to push you to be better. You would think with all the success that we have, he would just roll the football out there and tell you to go out there and just play and do what you did, but he always holds me accountable first. 

“He pushes me to be even better and to work on the little things here and there, and it keeps me motivated to get even better. When I keep that same motivation, it bleeds throughout the rest of the football team. I think we have a lot of guys that want to be the best versions of themselves, and then collectively as a team.”

Before Mahomes earned his first MVP in 2018, Reid and Alex Smith guided the Chiefs to four playoff berths over the prior five years. Now in his 13th season with Kansas City and 26th as an NFL head coach, he enters 2025 with a 301-163-1 career record.

One of four individuals ever to win 300 NFL games (Don Shula 347, Bill Belichick 333, George Halas 324), Reid has 110 more wins than the next-closest active head coach, Mike Tomlin (191). And with Halas within striking distance, the 67-year-old Reid shows no signs of nearing retirement.

“Is he perfect? No,” Benjamin wrote. “Is he aging? Yes. But every roster he fields respects his warm, familial and proven leadership. And every winter, with Mahomes by his side, he's registered as Mr. Inevitable, pushing the Chiefs the extra yard whenever they most need it.”

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