Super Bowl winner, Big Red, and Pink-Slip Andy. We’ve heard plenty of nicknames for head coach Andy Reid. But never has anyone called him a fraud. That’s why when former Dallas Cowboys head coach Jason Garrett applied that label to Reid, there was confusion. But when Garrett explained his perspective, it couldn’t be any simpler. It spoke of a larger truth that has driven Reid’s success. 

It happened as Andy Reid made an appearance on Garrett’s show, Coach2Coach with Jason Garrett. 

“I often tell people that you’re a fraud,” Garrett told Reid on Coach2Coach. “And I say it as a compliment because people see you on the sidelines. They see you in press conferences. You’re jovial. People love you. You’re a father figure, you’re a grandfather figure. You’re old school. And I’ve been to your practices. I’ve played against your teams. Demanding, detailed, all of that.” 

We’ve seen this side of Andy Reid. Every time the Kansas City Chiefs head to Missouri Western, each practice session demands the best out of their players. Whether it’s the long drive drills or Reid putting the team through eight padded sessions in ten days, the training camp is, by no means, comfortable. As Drew Tranquil once put it, “The CBA says we get four hours (each day), we’re going to be on the field for exactly four hours.” 

Despite this intensity, there’s a different side of coach Reid that Garrett sees. It’s a side to coach Reid outside of the intensity on the field. 

“You balance that with this new-school approach where these players want to run through the wall for you,” Garrett told Reid. But what inspires such drive within players? It all goes back to Reid’s most basic lesson: coaches are teachers first. And Reid has proven this time and again. 

It started in his days in Philadelphia. Coach Reid would always jot things down in notes and give them to his quarterback Donovan McNabb. And the one note that stood out had just two words: Don’t Judge. That note was one that made the biggest impact on the young QB coming out of Syracuse. 

While most may have discounted the second-round pick for Philly, Reid had a different plan. “I’m going to build this offense around you and your ability,” he told McNabb. And just a few years later, McNabb had reached a Super Bowl once and the Pro-Bowl six times. But Reid didn’t stop there. 

When he landed in Kansas City, he turned the fortune of another hot-headed player and transformed him into one of the greatest tight ends of all time. Suspensions in college, throwing a towel at a referee, and making obscene gestures; Kelce had done it all. But when Reid arrived, he didn’t try and change him.

Instead of forcing Kelce to fit into his system, Reid worked to improve Kelce based on the tight end’s strengths. While he kept straying from the planned routes and strategies, Kelce kept finding space. And Reid decided to use this. 

As Brad Childress, his former assistant, said, “He has a great feel. A feel might be doing something completely opposite of what he should do. ‘What’s he doing? I don’t know, but he’s open, throw him the ball.’ And that’s so not Andy… If he didn’t let him be creative, you’d be trying to push a round peg in a square hole. And it would stifle the kid.”

That’s Reid’s secret. All of it is a culmination of the things he learned since he arrived as an assistant coach at the University of Missouri, where he taught a class called The Coaching of Football. He learned that making an effort to improve his students as they are and showing them the way was something that stuck to them.

As one of his former students, John Diffley, had put it, “His classes were so engaging, and he did things to make you want to learn the game… He was really good at breaking down his terminology. He actually really left a lasting impression.”

That approach has carried into every team Reid has coached since. And Garrett knows this especially well. He had already called Reid a fraud on The Dan Patrick Show, bringing up the two different sides of the coaching. He can shoot commercials with Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce and dress up as Santa Claus. But on the field, Andy Reid is all about business.

“You can coach them hard. You can develop relationships with them. And that’s one of the great takeaways from it. You know, greatness comes when high standards, high accountability, but I also develop relationships with these guys. The nuance of leadership, I think that’s what the best guys do.”  

We saw an example of it just last week. Demanding greatness does not mean Reid lets his veteran stars completely burn themselves out. Just last week, Reid revealed he had to “yank” Kelce out of practice multiple times because the veteran tight end kept pushing himself beyond his limit. 

Even though he hasn’t won Coach of the Year with the team, Reid has mastered the nuanced leadership needed to build an unstoppable NFL dynasty.