Andy Reid: 'Gratifying' for KC Chiefs to Come Together for Super Bowl LVIII Win

Reid knows it wasn't easy, but that makes becoming champions again that much more enjoyable.

With the 2023-24 NFL campaign in the books, the Kansas City Chiefs ascended to the height of the mountain once again. Andy Reid's team is Super Bowl LVIII champions, although there were plenty of points in the season that raised red flags rather than signaling green lights.

In the season's first seven weeks, Kansas City was 6-1 and rode a six-game winning streak into a Week 8 outing against the Denver Broncos. At the time, the team was winning several close games with a couple of blowouts thrown into the mix. The offense, while sputtering a bit, was masked by an elite defense and the popular cleaning product known as a victory shine. That shine eventually wore off, but everyone banded together just in time for the postseason.

It wasn't a typical development arc for the Chiefs, which Reid is well aware of. Above all else he's learned to appreciate since September, he recognizes the value of patience and gratitude for working with a great team.

"Obviously, patience was one thing we had to do on the offensive side as guys learned — the young guys learned or the new guys learned," Reid said. "Very grateful for the job that Spags (defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo) did with the defensive side, and I thought they were a great example to everybody of taking young guys, teaching them and watching them grow like they had to do last year. And we were able to really come to a strength last year on defense for the playoffs. It kind of worked that way this year with the offense." 

The defense indeed did carry the Chiefs through the regular season. Spagnuolo's unit, led by a blend of young talent and some key veteran free agent pickups, was perhaps the NFL's best all year long. Dominating in per-game and per-drive statistics alike, it was a thorough group that executed one of the most complex and unique schemes in all of football. Had the middle-of-the-pack offense not benefitted from a top-shelf defense to bail it out at times, this Chiefs season undoubtedly would've gone in a different direction.

The offense does deserve some credit, though. At one point during the year, Kansas City had a 3-5 stretch of play filled with some absolutely brutal losses. Not in terms of getting outclassed, necessarily, but rather falling victim to the same self-inflicted issues as earlier in the season. Reid drew outside criticism for saying his squad was "just a tick off" on that side of the ball but once the playoffs rolled around, he looked like a genius. A combination of game-planning tweaks, fewer mistakes and quarterback Patrick Mahomes's excellence got things back on track. Sunday's Super Bowl is a perfect example of that, which Reid was thrilled to see. 

"To win one [Super Bowl] is tough," Reid said. "To win two back-to-back is really tough. I mean, that's not an easy thing to do. To know the effort the guys put into it, the way they stuck together through the highs and lows... you see offensive guys wearing t-shirts around saying, 'In Spags We Trust.' It's a joint effort. There wasn't an offense versus defensive thing, it was us playing as one group. And special teams, likewise, the guys jumping in and just doing a phenomenal job on special teams when needed. Everybody had a little piece of the pie, and that's gratifying as a head coach to be around something like that." 

Now on the other side of what was the most trying season of the Mahomes era, the Chiefs have locked up their third ring in five years. That championship level of play cements them as a dynasty, as well as a textbook definition of what the word "team" means. With a Super Bowl parade coming to Kansas City on Wednesday, it's time for the organization to celebrate. Reid, in classic fashion, wants everyone to take a wise approach to what's always a crazy event. 

"Yeah, that was mentioned a couple of times," Reid said. "It's great to have fun but, you know, be smart."

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