As soon as the teams were set, the theme talk about Super Bowl LVII immediately shifted to it being the “Andy Reid Bowl,” considering Reid’s success as the Eagles head coach before he joined the Chiefs and led them to even more success.
Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni might have something to say about the Andy Reid Bowl before the coming week is said and done.
After the 2012 NFL season, Sirianni was just wrapping up his fourth season as an assistant coach with the Chiefs, the last of which was as receivers coach, and Reid was hired as the new head coach in Kansas City.
Reid opted not to retain Sirianni on his Chiefs staff, sending him on a run of three different assistant-coach posts with the Chargers before he hooked on with the Colts as their offensive coordinator for three seasons.
A decade later, Sirianni, at 41 years old and in his second year as the Eagles head coach, stands in the way of the 64-year-old Reid winning his second Super Bowl.
There are no hard feelings between the two, but still, the man whom Reid passed over for his staff has a chance to turn the Andy Reid Bowl upside down.
“When I came here [to Kansas City], I was told Nick Sirianni is a really special coach,” Reid said. “But I had David [Culley]. David was my assistant head coach, and he had been with me for 14 years, and so he was coming with me. I had to make that determination to keep Nick or not, and I knew being as good as he was and the reputation he had, I knew he was going to get something.
“So, it’s worked out great for him.”
Sirianni, who holds Reid in high regard, understood the nature of the business.
“It was just kind of receiving my fate there,” Sirianni recalled. “[Reid] told me face-to-face that he had a guy, but had heard good things about me. And I appreciated that, his honesty, his ability to get to me as soon as he possibly could so I could move on and find another job.
“I didn’t get a chance to pick his brain at all on anything like that, but got a ton of respect for Coach Reid and who he is as a person and who he is as a coach. His record speaks for itself, but you talk to anybody, and they think even higher of him as a person. Do I know him all that well? No. But I have a high amount of respect for him.”
Reid had a 140-102-1 record in his 14 years in Philadelphia (including postseason), getting to one Super Bowl and losing it, and is 128-52 with one Super Bowl title in his 10 seasons in Kansas City. He recalled this of Sirianni: “I loved his personality.”
Sirianni’s success in such a short time with the Eagles — he’s 25-12 with playoff appearances in his first two seasons — came as no surprise to Reid.
“He’s a guy that you can talk to and [he] communicates well, he’s got a fire to him that you appreciate — and the players appreciate, and he’s smart,” Reid said. “I think he’s perfect for Philadelphia. That’s a tough place and he’s a tough kid, and he relates well to those people there.”
Sirianni, too, relates to his players, connecting with them in a way that might surprise you considering his cringeworthy introductory press conference that was so awkward it made you wonder whether he would last a year in hard-to-please Philadelphia.
“He won me over when he first got here,” Eagles veteran defensive end Brandon Graham said. “It was cool because after that press conference he had when he did all that stuff, said all the wrong things and a lot of [reporters] got on him, he came into here and gave us his honest answer about how he felt about it. He was pissed about it. I loved that, because a lot of coaches wouldn’t admit to the media getting under their skin.
“It was down-to-earth cool. That’s when he won me over, man, just coming in and being real about how he feels. He does a real good job of owning it and moving on.”
Eagles veteran center Jason Kelce praised the culture Sirianni brought to the team.
“The atmosphere and culture he builds within this building are a really big reason why the [assistant] coaches have flourished and why the players have flourished,” Kelce said. “That’s what a head coach’s main role is. His No. 1 job is to facilitate an organization that is focused on working, that comes into the building with energy, that’s motivated to get better.
“These things far outweigh what play we call on third down. I think Nick does a phenomenal job of that and he deserves all the credit in world for it.”
Sirianni said the best thing he got out of his experience in Kansas City had nothing to do with football.
“I met my wife there,” he said. “That will always be a special place to us because of that. Kansas City is a great town. We really enjoyed our time there. I made some good friends there, as well, none of which I would assume are rooting for us or our family this weekend, but that’s OK.”
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