Andy Reid is a Super Bowl-winning coach, and a big public figure. Multiple players say he is like a father figure to the team; his kind eyes, glasses, and moustache do make him look like one. However, Philadelphia media would beg to differ, who had a hard time getting through him. Today, looking back, Andy Reid regrets being so difficult with the press back then.
“I’m trying to think of things that weren’t,” Andy Reid said on Coach2Coach with Jason Garrett. “I probably didn’t handle the media the best way I possibly could. I thought it was the best way at that time. I was a young guy; there was no name involved with Andy Reid. I hadn’t been a coordinator. I’m coming from Green Bay, a small town. Hadn’t been in the league for seven years.
“And all of a sudden the worst team in football hires me and [clears throat] so you’re sitting in one of the roughest cities in the National Football League, and you just hired this guy. So I came in with a pretty hard ball approach just I didn’t want to deal with all the nonsense. I was going to give him short, quick answers. I probably could have done that a little better.”
When the Philadelphia Eagles hired Andy Reid in 1999, many people saw him as an inexperienced choice. He had spent seven years as an assistant coach with the Green Bay Packers, but he had never been an NFL head coach or offensive coordinator. Even though Andy Reid eventually went on to be the head coach and win one Super Bowl, he was notorious for his stoicism with the Philly media.
He rarely entertained the media with laughs or funny quips; he was straight to the point, making him an unpopular figure. After the Eagles’ loss to the New York Giants in the 2011 season, Andy Reid’s press conference lasted approximately three and a half minutes. In his final seven answers, per The Inquirer, Reid gave two “yes” answers, one “we’ll see,” and three other answers that were four words or fewer.
However, this attitude was proof of how focused Reid was on football. Multiple years in the sport had forced him to develop a resolute mindset, preventing him from showing emotion. In a very shocking incident, while he was in Philadelphia, he turned up at a press conference in August 2012, the day after he buried his eldest son, who passed away in a tragic incident.
There were times when he got choked up, but per Crossing Broad’s Kyle Scott, Reid “never wavered.”
“I know coming back and coaching is the right thing to do,” the coach said. “I know my son wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. So, with that, I move on and we’ll talk about the injuries.”
Today, with time, Reid has learnt to warm up to the press. He’ll happily talk about stuff that might not even have to do with football. But there was a time when Reid could have done a better job in his behavior with the media.