Kyle Shanahan has run into the proverbial wall that stands between NFL head coaches and a Lombardi Trophy four times now in seven seasons as a head coach. Twice he’s fallen short in the Super Bowl. Twice he’s come up short in the NFC championship game. That kind of success without the ultimate prize is a familiar space for Chiefs head coach Andy Reid.
Reid, thanks to his run with quarterback Patrick Mahomes, is now synonymous with greatness among NFL head coaches. There’s a real chance he tracks down former Patriots head coach Bill Belichick as the most decorated head coach of all-time. That wasn’t always the case though.
Prior to Kansas City’s Super Bowl LIV win (over the 49ers, oddly enough), Reid was 20 years deep into his career as a head coach in the NFL. He’d been to just one Super Bowl and lost five NFC championship games between his tenures with the Eagles and Chiefs. Then he got his quarterback and the winning came fast and furious. Since 2019 Reid and the Chiefs have pulled in three Lombardi Trophies and the head coach has established himself as one of the league’s all-time greats.
Reid on Monday at the NFL owners meetings was asked about Shanahan after defeating him in a Super Bowl for the second time in February.
“Just keep doing what you’re doing and somewhere you pop over the hill there,” Reid said via ESPN’s Nick Wagoner. “I know he’s got a great young quarterback, and him with a great young quarterback is deadly.”
Shanahan has had one of the best rosters in the league since his first Super Bowl run as a head coach in the 2019 season, but the QB has always been a little bit of a question mark. Reid is the second Chiefs coach to prop up 49ers QB Brock Purdy as a great player following his performance in Super Bowl LVIII. Defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo also did it.
If Reid and Spagnuolo are correct and Shanahan does have his franchise QB in Purdy, then it may not be long until he gets over that hill Reid mentioned. Even if it is Reid and Mahomes standing on top of it.
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