The only thing that looks better on Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid than a Hawaiian shirt is extra time to prepare for an opponent.
In Reid’s 21-year career as an NFL head coach, he’s 17-3 coming out of the bye week during the regular season. Two of those losses have come when he has been the coach of the Chiefs, with the most recent loss coming in 2017 to the New York Giants. They lost that game in frustrating fashion with an overtime field goal.
In 2018, Kansas City faced the Oakland Raiders coming off a Week 12 bye, just as they will in 2019. That season they traveled to the Raiders in Oakland and they won the game 40-33. This time the Raiders will be tasked with facing the Chiefs at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City.
In 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2018, the Chiefs have come away victorious with extra time to prepare for their opponent. In 2019, with the team hoping to return to the AFC championship and then the Super Bowl, they’ll need to continue their dominance following the bye week.
For the Raiders, the upcoming Week 13 game could be the difference between winning the AFC West, being a wild-card team, or even missing the playoffs altogether. You know they’ll be ready to put up their best shot against a hated rival like Kansas City.
Another cool part about Reid’s post-bye record is that it extends to the playoffs. Reid has only had a bye week in the playoffs a total five times in his 21-year NFL career. During each of those five years, he’s gone undefeated coming off of a first-round bye week.
The Chiefs really hurt their chances at a first-round bye week by dropping a winnable game to the Tennesse Titans in Week 10. There’s still a chance that they could get the first-round bye, but in addition to winning down the stretch themselves, they’ll need some teams like the Baltimore Ravens and New England Patriots to lose some games along the way to the playoffs.