In the past, we might have seen a more tentative Andy Reid when faced with a fourth-down situation. Now, he appears to be letting it all hang out.
When the Kansas City Chiefs faced a fourth-and-1 at their own 34-yard line in the first quarter against the Houston Texans, what did Reid do? Uncharacteristically, he kept his offense out on the field and went for it. The results were a successful conversion for his football team. The drive would lead to the Chiefs’ first touchdown of the game and things just snowballed from there.
Reid’s decision drew universal praise and he spoke about the fourth down call on Wednesday.
“Well, listen, that’s one that could go either way and you know that,” Reid said. “So, if you don’t get it then you don’t look so good, but I just felt like we needed to do that there and I thought we had a good play, so we ended up doing it. I’m not going to tell you that we’d do that every week, but we’re going to try to stay as aggressive as we can on fourth downs. We’ve been pretty good at that over the years, but anyway, I just felt that was a subjective decision on my part, right or wrong. If you talk to stats people, analytics people, they’d tell you it’s the right thing. If you talk to other people, they might tell you something different, but I just felt in my gut that was the right thing to do.”
Reid is right, had the play gone sideways and cost Kansas City the game, the headlines would have probably read, “Baffling fourth-down call costs the Chiefs.” But it didn’t, and now he’s getting every bit of credit for his gutsy call. It was something that no team had done during the first quarter throughout the entire 2019 season.
From the sound of it, Reid will continue to be aggressive on fourth down calls throughout the 2020 season. But what has changed for Reid? Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes probably has something to do with it.
Mahomes has always maintained an aggressve approach on fourth down. He reiterated his stance from last season, that he’d go for it every single time if it were up to him. Perhaps Mahomes’ aggressive nature is rubbing off on Reid?
“I think the conversation happens during the week,” Mahomes said. “We prepare for those situations during the week and in training camp. Coach puts us in those situations so that when he calls the plays, we know exactly what we need to do and go out there and execute. If it’s up to me, I would want to go for it every single time. I just try to stay out there as long as possible. If it gives us the chance to go out there and make it happen, we’ve got to make it happen so that we get more chances later on in the year.”
Maybe this paradigm shift for Reid has something to do with his first Super Bowl win. He doesn’t have to chase perfection in pursuit of his first title any longer. He can afford to be a little more loose and gutsy with the play-calling in situations where there might be risk, but a greater reward. Whatever the case, an aggressive head coach is good for this offense and a welcome departure from what Kansas City has seen in previous seasons.
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