The man who gave Kansas City Chiefs HC Andy Reid his first job in the NFL is up for enshrinement into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Mike Holmgren spent 16 seasons as an NFL head coach spending time with both the Green Bay Packers and Seattle Seahawks. Holmgren was recently named one of 29 coaching semifinalists for the Hall of Fame class of 2023. His path first crossed with Reid at BYU when he was a quarterbacks coach under LaVell Edwards. When Reid made the decision to end his playing career and get into coaching, it was Holmgren who helped him get his first job as the offensive line coach at San Francisco State.
In 1992, Holmgren’s first season in Green Bay, he hired Reid to coach the team’s tight ends. After coaching the tight ends for five seasons and helping Green Bay to a Super Bowl title (XXXI), Holmgren promoted Reid to coach the quarterbacks in 1997. Reid would coach Hall of Fame QB Brett Favre for two seasons before he was hired as head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles, and the rest is history.
Reid has long been a proponent of Holmgren’s candidacy for the Hall of Fame, even pitching the selection committee on it during Favre’s induction back in 2016.
“They just need to get one more guy in, and that’s Mike Holmgren,” Reid said, via Chiefs.com. “Then they’ll have the whole Godhead of the Green Bay Packers there and set up in the Hall of Fame.”
Not only did Holmgren help kick off Reid’s professional coaching career, but he taught him everything he knows about being a head coach in the NFL.
“I felt this way when I worked for him, so I felt he was the best,” Reid said in October of 2020. “I didn’t think anybody could do it better than he did it. He just had control of everything and was smooth with the players, and at the same time, he could get on them, and likewise with all the people in the organization. So, I had a great teacher there and somebody that deserves to be in the Hall of Fame, obviously.”
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