Inside The Huskies

Here's How Fisch Becomes Next Kansas City Chiefs Coach

One man's futuristic view of finding a new leader for the multiple Super Bowl champs.

Dan Raley

Jedd Fisch hangs out with his quarterbacks during spring ball.
Jedd Fisch hangs out with his quarterbacks during spring ball. / Skylar Lin Visuals

Hired as University of Washington football coach, Jedd Fisch was asked if he could guarantee a lengthy stay in Montlake, especially since his predecessor, Kalen DeBoer, was on the job for just two seasons.

Fisch himself had worked for just three seasons at Arizona after suggesting his time In Tucson would be longer.

Having learned his lesson in the desert about making overly exuberant proclamations, the coach deftly sidestepped this question at his introductory news conference by responding he had come to the UW simply to win.

While Fisch purposely might be a little hazy about his future possibilities -- with the obvious outcome that he would listen to opportunities if he made a big splash with the Huskies similar to DeBoer -- one Steve Rivera, who dabbles as a football fortune teller with a laptop in his hands, recently offered an interesting look into the coach's short-term future.

Rivera's football vision is this: he has Andy Reid retiring from the Kansas City Chiefs after winning a third consecutive Super Bowl next season and Fisch immediately stepping up as his coaching replacement for the iconic NFL franchise in Middle America.

Well now.

If that happened, Fisch would be the first Husky football coach to leave town after spending just one season on the job since Darrell Royal guided the UW to a 5-5 record in 1956 after the program had emerged from a slush-fund scandal that broke up the longstanding Pacific Coast Conference.

Fisch, in Rivera's estimation, is a worthy Reid successor because he's previously coached 14 seasons in the NFL for eight different franchises and he appears to have transitioned from coordinator and assistant coach to able-bodied head coach in a seamless manner.

Writes Rivera in his recent football daydream for The Wright Way Network: "Fisch is a coach’s coach. He’s seen the highs and lows from California to New England in the college and NFL ranks. Andy Reid gets it. Jedd Fisch gets it."

Of course, for all of this to happen, Reid, 66, will need to conclude he's done more than enough in the NFL and it's time to relax whereas in all actuality he could be far from satisfied that he's done enough with the Kansas City Chiefs.

Naturally, Fisch likely would have to have a big season with the Huskies in their first season in the Big Ten Conference, maybe upset Michigan and Penn State, the two toughest teams on this fall's schedule, and put his guys in the initial 12-team College Football Playoff, where maybe they upset Alabama and DeBoer before getting eliminated.

OK, we made up all of that latter stuff, rather than it coming from Rivera, but the point is a big splash by Fisch while overseeing the UW football program won't go unnoticed elsewhere and probably won't go unrewarded either.

Rivera concludes that a veteran and driven coach such as Reid won't wait for a losing season for him to put his feet up and wait to be called to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, that he'll much prefer to go out on top.

"Reid won’t wait. The Hunt family will not either, and Washington Huskies coach Jedd Fisch will be their guy."

For the latest UW football and basketball news, go to si.com/college/washington

Published |Modified
Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

Home/Football