Although Reid‘s wake-up call came later than anticipated, he told Tom Brady that it was crucial in turning around Kansas City’s season. If you had told people a little over a month ago that the Kansas City Chiefs would be playing in Super Bowl LVIII, many of them would not have believed you. And yet, Andy Reid’s squad is here, one victory over the San Francisco 49ers away from winning the world championship two years in a row.
Kansas City had a turbulent regular season that included a 6-1 start and a 3-5 run in the middle.
Andy Reid speaks about Chiefs turning point
That turned out to be the Chiefs’ ideal window of opportunity. Reid said this week that the season was turned around before the playoffs as a result of the Week 16 loss when he was a guest on the Let’s Go! podcast with Tom Brady and Jim Gray. Reid gives his players credit for organizing a group effort. He said,
“Yeah, listen, I give it to the Pat Mahomes, Travis Kelce, Chris Jones, the players,” “That locker room — and Tom can tell, he knows this — when you’ve been there and you understand the urgency it takes to get there, then you up your game. That’s just what you do. I think after my man (Antonio) Pierce out there with the Raiders kicked our tail, it woke us up and said, ‘Hey, listen, we need to take our game up here a notch or we’re not going to stand a chance here to get into the playoffs and/or to win in the playoffs.’ Those guys took care of business. They got everybody rallied around them and said, ‘Here we go.’ Good things happened.” “It’s tough to get to the Super Bowl, period,” Reid said. “To be able to back-to-back it — you (Brady) taught us part of that lesson — not only as a player with the Patriots, but also you kicked our tail at Tampa Bay. There’s a certain attitude and toughness that you’ve got to come into each game with, and you presented that to us down there. It was a good learning experience for our guys.”
Just one more game will separate Kansas City from becoming the first team to win the Super Bowl twice in 20 years. Strangely enough, Brady is the latest man to have seen it. Reid knows this, and he’s hoping that past performance will help him in the biggest game of the season.