Sam McDowell: Chiefs' Andy Reid should be the NFL Coach of the Year

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Chiefs are 15-1 for the first time in franchise history, and they looked every bit the part on Christmas Day in Pittsburgh. In a week, they could become the second team in NFL history to win 16 games in one season, even if they would have to do it with backups in Denver.

And, well, can the coach of this historic team get some love?

Not in narrative.

In actual hardware.

Andy Reid should be a slam-dunk, runaway winner for the NFL Coach of the Year honor.

Yet as of this writing, in the Vegas sportsbooks, he sits third in the betting market, a distant 6-to-1 shot and trailing the favorite, Washington coach Dan Quinn, and Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell.

Quick question, if you don’t mind: How?

Those coaches have been terrific. So have plenty of others in the league.

But what, exactly, is the requirement for Reid to win this thing for once? Is it literal perfection? Or would 17-0 even be enough?

Reid has never won the NFL’s coach of the year award during his tenure in Kansas City, and I’ll remind you he has three Super Bowls for a franchise that spanned a half-century without one. I can guarantee you he does not care about any of this.

But if we’re going to have the award at all, maybe we ought to take it seriously. If Reid cannot win this year — 15-1 with his starters and whatever happens next weekend in Denver with Carson Wentz almost certainly getting the start — you’re essentially saying he is ineligible. You’re saying that he is disqualified before the year even begins — that the best coach of the last decade cannot possibly be the best coach of the year, too.

The record should put him in the conversation. How the Chiefs have obtained it should end the rest of the conversation.

Recognizing every team must sidestep injuries during the regular season, this one has sure sidestepped a lot of important ones, and they escaped them all unscathed in the standings.

Before the season began, the Chiefs lost wide receiver Hollywood Brown, second on their depth chart, to a 15-week clavicle injury. In Week 2, they lost starting running back Isiah Pacheco for a couple of months. Two weeks later, they lost top wideout Rashee Rice for the season. Rice was leading the league in receptions, second in yards, through three weeks.

The Chiefs have started four left tackles, asking a rookie, a second-year mid-round pick, a free agent signed off the street at the holidays and a natural left guard to protect the most valuable commodity in football.

15-1.

The Chiefs had planned on Brown revitalizing their downfield passing game this season. After his injury on the first snap of preseason, they adjusted, asking Rice to gain the bulk of their passing-game yards after the catch rather than requesting the flight of the football do the heavy lifting. After that injury, they became a run-first team for the first time in Reid’s tenure.

Plan A.

Plan B.

Then Plan C.

All with the same outcome: The Chiefs just kept winning.

Heck, they have had three kickers hit game-winners as the clock expired. No team in NFL history previously had more than one.

It’s not that the Chiefs have endured any single one of those items. It’s the collection.

And it’s what stands out on the other side of that collection:

The best record in football.

How can any of that not matter? Or at least not matter enough?

That the Chiefs have won close games — that they’ve dodged bullets all year — is not a counterpoint to the argument. It bolsters the argument. This is not the best Chiefs team Reid has coached. In fact, in several advanced metrics, it is the worst team he’s coached that has employed Patrick Mahomes at quarterback.

It’s a compliment that they find a way.

We’ve sure as heck seen other teams find a way to lose. The Chiefs are the contrast.

What more would Reid have had to accomplish this year?

I asked the question, but I‘ll answer it too: He could have stunk up the place a year ago. The true fault in the award is that it’s become a replacement for a recognition for the most improved team.

The Chiefs won the Super Bowl last season. Some are immune to reward the coach for being good again the following season.

But maintaining success is not just passing out the uniforms and opening training camp with an instruction to repeat what worked a year ago. The 49ers are proof of it. There’s a lot of love for their coach, by the way, and there should be. But Kyle Shanahan has now missed the playoffs in each encore of a Super Bowl appearance.

It ain’t easy.

That Reid makes it look easy — that the Chiefs have made people believe 15-1 is somehow underachieving — shouldn’t discount its difficulty.

One other thing, too: The Chiefs have played their best football in the last two weeks. This hasn’t been the most efficient offensive season — the least, actually, under Mahomes — but they have found their stride. It’s not a mistake it’s come with Brown’s long-awaited return and the late-season rise of Xavier Worthy, a player who the Chiefs had the patience to stick with during his early- and mid-year hiccups.

For several weeks, the Chiefs left us wondering if they had another level offensively. And then on Christmas Day in Pittsburgh, they reached it.

They’re undoubtedly better than they were when the season began. Better than they were last month. Better than they were last week.

And isn’t that the essence of coaching?