Andy Reid spent 14 mostly successful seasons at the helm of the Philadelphia Eagles - you don't last a decade and a half in one place without finding success after all, especially in the NFL (Not For Long).
Year in and year out, he fielded a team with championship caliber talent and championship aspirations, but was never quite able to reach that ultimate goal - a Super Bowl victory. Could this, his second season in Kansas City as the head honcho of the Chiefs, be the year he finally reaches the apex of his coaching career, winning it all and bringing glory to a franchise so often mired in mediocrity in recent decades?
Sitting at 7-3 and preparing for a Thursday night game against the winless Oakland Raiders that will, absent an act of God, almost assuredly end up being their eighth victory of the season, Reid has the team well on their way to a playoff berth and possibly more, according to a recent article from Bucky Brooks of NFL.com.
Brooks, after reviewing tapes of the Chiefs recent five-game winning streak, culminating this past Sunday in a victory over the Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks, points to three reasons he sees the Chiefs as possibly the new team to beat in the AFC West - ahead of the mighty Denver Broncos...
1. An offense tailored to the strengths of its playmakers.
2. The emergence of tight end Travis Kelce.
3. Alex Smith's perfect fit in the offense.
The strength of Kansas City's offense flies in the face of almost everything Reid became known for with the Eagles. Lacking serious outside playmakers, Reid has instead tweaked his offensive approach to feature more of an inside-out game plan - run the ball, hit play action when you can and utilize Smith's deceptive athleticism to get him outside the pocket and helping to freeze linebackers and defensive ends in the run game.
A longtime proponent of a pass-heavy aerial attack, with the Chiefs Reid has instead focused on the ground game as his bread and butter - and with good reason. Jamaal Charles is one of the most electrifying backs in the league, and rookie De'Anthony Thomas has emerged as an explosive playmaker. The installation of a deceptive running game that utilizes misdirection and an embracing of the tight end position, thanks to the maturation of Kelce, have made the Chiefs offense dependable as well as big-play oriented.
With a defense that is allowing the second fewest points in the league per game (17.1) and gives up the least pass yards per game (201.6), according to NFL.com, if the offense can continue using the combination of creativity and power to create chunk plays, Reid and the Chiefs may very well find themselves playing football well into January.
