The amazing plays that Kansas City Chiefs HC Andy Reid draws up and the equally amazing execution from QB Patrick Mahomes all starts at training camp. It’s a collaborative effort between Reid and Mahomes that makes this offense function like a well-oiled machine. Their relationship and trust has grown over the last several years, developing into an open line of communication between the two and leading to some exciting play on the football field.
“With Pat, he’s always wanted to learn and then he also has ideas,” Reid explained. “I try to keep the communication line open with him and he does the same thing from his end, along with the other quarterbacks. That’s a healthy room right there where it’s just a good learning center for those guys. There’s experience, there’s youth in there, there’s college coming into the league and things that they’ve run before either at the college level or potentially with other teams. Then, the coaches are good. Again, we try to keep open communication all the way along and I’ve tried to do that with Patrick the best I can.”
Caught this nice moment with Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes. #Chiefs — love how Coach Reid (face shield and all) eases in and Mahomes stops to listen for a bit. Great to see from the HC and QB. pic.twitter.com/Feclp21LoE
— Harold R. Kuntz (@HaroldRKuntz3) August 23, 2020
Both Reid and Mahomes thrive on innovation. They like doing things that haven’t been done before or going back and taking a concept and making it their own. Training camp is where it all begins, where the two can test the limits of their own creativity.
“With Patrick,” Chiefs GM Brett Veach recently told Peter King, “Coach knows his mind can be creative with no limitations. He’s got a blank canvas and he can draw anything up because his quarterback can execute anything.”
Reid also has an army at his disposal when it comes to creating unique and successful plays. He trusts each of his coaches to provide insight when it comes to play design. That’s how he has come up with unique plays in the past like “Shift to Rose Bowl Right Parade” and “Bloated Tebow Pass.”
“I’m blessed to have the guys around me that I do coaching-wise, starting with Eric Bieniemy and Greg Lewis and Mike Kafka, Joe Bleymaier, Tom Melvin, Corey Matthaei, all of these guys,” Reid said. “The thing that gets neglected is the creativity in the run game that we have with Corey and Andy Heck working this thing. It’s phenomenal. And then you put Deland (McCullough) in the mix here working guys out of the backfield and being able to come up with new things there. Everybody has an input, and it’s unique that way. So, I’m just happy to be a part of that and the energy is great, and I like that. I like creativity and I like energy and you put those two together and normally you can come up with some pretty good stuff.”
Mahomes doesn’t just try anything he wants in practice haphazardly. He won’t just randomly toss in a behind-the-back pass or change up a play without telling coach. Everything he does is purposeful. He wants to test his limits and push the boundaries of what he can and can’t do each and every season. You can’t push those boundaries without having some failure during the course of practice.
“It’s not necessarily free reign to try everything that I want but we do discuss things,” Mahomes explained. “We try things. If I do something one way, Coach Kafka, Coach Bieniemy, and Coach Reid ask me why I did that or if I want to try it this way and do different things. I think it’s just more of a focus on me trying what is out there and going for the shot play maybe when it’s a little contested. If we have success with it, then we can take it to the season and if we don’t, we can learn from it and move on to the next progression.”
When Mahomes first became the starter in Kansas City, there was mass hysteria over the interceptions he threw at training camp. He’d go on to be the most prolific passer in the NFL that season, throwing for over 5,000 yards, 50 touchdowns and just 12 interceptions.
Reid has dealt with this training camp interception criticism before, even prior to Patrick Mahomes’ tenure in Kansas City. He pushes his quarterbacks to let it fly in practice because he’s confident that he can coach them up if something goes wrong. There’s a difference between the interceptions that happen in his practices and the ones that happen elsewhere.
“No, I did the same thing with Alex (Smith),” Reid said. “I just said, ‘Hey, try it now.’ We’re going to ask a few different things of you—there are some things that even in Alex’s long career that he had before he got here—there might be some things you haven’t tried before, so let’s see what you can get away with. And Alex was great with it. I mentioned it I believe during training camp up at St. Joe that when I first got here I was asked about interceptions—there are ones where guys are working on it and then there are ones where guys scramble around and they just throw it up, sloppy interceptions. The other ones you can judge and see that they’re trying to work and see what they can get away with in the play. I think that’s so important. And Mike Holmgren, if I got it from somebody, that’s where I got it from.”
Training camp serves a number of different purposes, from conditioning to player evaluation. But for Reid and Mahomes, training camp is a testing ground to figure out which innovative plays will work, and the ones that won’t work, for the upcoming season.
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