Andy Reid’s Chiefs still have an Eagles flavor. Would Philly have tasted similar success had he stayed?

LAS VEGAS — Matt Nagy stood face-to-face with Andy Reid and was looking straight into the famous follicles above the Eagles coach’s lips and quite possibly his own future in the NFL.

The young assistant wasn’t thinking beyond Reid’s question about the quarterback prospects before the 2012 draft, though. He was just a quality control coach trying not to give the wrong answer to his boss.

“I remember at this moment I was staring at this mustache that he had. Right at it, and he’s asking me the question and I’m thinking to myself, ‘I can’t even make eye contact with him,’” Nagy said. “I was like, ‘Does he want to hear what I think he wants to hear, or is it, should I tell him what I really think?’

“And I stuck to my guns and told him what I really thought.”

It was a test — one similar to the countless pop quizzes Reid has thrown at young coaches who have worked under him over the last 25 years. He was asking for help, but mostly he wanted to see if Nagy had done the work, and ultimately, if he was worth keeping around.

Nagy passed his test and subsequently became one of the many who have blossomed under the legendary coach in Philadelphia. When Reid was fired by Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie in 2012, he took with him to Kansas City many staff members who are still there to this day.

From coaches to scouts to trainers to analysts, the Chiefs have several with time in Philly on their resumés. All three coordinators — Nagy (offensive), Steve Spagnuolo (defensive), and Dave Toub (special teams) — had their NFL coaching starts with the Eagles under Reid.

When the Chiefs meet the San Francisco 49ers in Sunday’s Super Bowl LVIII, their sideline will be speckled with familiar faces for Eagles fans who can stomach watching Reid attempt to win his third championship in the last five years.

The 65-year-old is already in the GOAT conversation, but another crown would make him only the fifth coach to win as many Lombardi trophies. And with quarterback Patrick Mahomes only 28, it’s possible Reid could catch Bill Belichick’s six titles if he plans to keep chugging along.

Just a year ago, before the Chiefs and Eagles met in the Super Bowl, it was relatively even in how both organizations had performed after the Reid split 10 years earlier. They had each won championships and reached multiple postseasons, even if the Eagles had more coaching instability.

But Kansas City clipped the Birds, 38-35, in Super Bowl LVII, and with the Chiefs one victory from becoming the first team to win back-to-back titles in 19 years, it’s fair to question whether Lurie made the right decision in letting Reid go after 14 mostly successful seasons.

“It’s hard to say or imagine that things would have happened similarly in Philadelphia if nothing had changed,” said Chiefs general manager Brett Veach, another former Eagles employee who has thrived in Kansas City. “I think like anything in life, sometimes change is needed.”

Like any hypothetical, there could be countless variables to consider if the scenario of a Reid-Veach partnership with the Eagles rather than with the Chiefs is imagined. Who knows what could have thrown off the possibility of them drafting Mahomes, or any other outcome, in that construct?

Reid wasn’t even willing to entertain the question of what he would tell his 40-year-old self upon his first season as head coach with 25 years of knowledge when asked during Super Bowl media night on Monday.

“That’s a good question. I’m not sure what I would tell him,” he said. “I’m glad he’s still around.”

Maybe that’s because consistency has been one of the hallmarks of his career. Reid has been as adaptable to the changing trends of time as any NFL coach. But when it comes to his core beliefs, not much has changed, except for one thing, according to another staffer with an Eagles-Chiefs connection.

“He is a lot different. He’s winning Super Bowls,” Todd Pinkston, the former Eagles receiver now on Reid’s Kansas City staff, said with a laugh. “But he’s basically the same. He’s still detail-oriented and his standard and expectations are still real high.”

» READ MORE: Todd Pinkston can go from infamy with the Eagles to glory with the Chiefs. As a coach.

In Philly, Reid established a winning formula that gave the organization its longest sustained period of success. The Eagles went to the playoffs in nine of his first 12 seasons, reaching the NFC championship game five times and the Super Bowl once.

But they fell short of winning it all and after 8-8 and 4-12 seasons in 2011-12, Lurie had run out of patience. Reid fought to stay, but he eventually accepted that a new start elsewhere may have been best for both sides.

“If Coach didn’t leave and stayed for a few more years and the Super Bowl wasn’t reached and maybe the opportunity in Kansas City closes its doors, and Philadelphia never won a Super Bowl — it can go either way,” Veach said about the decision that impacted so many. “I think that’s just how tough this league is.

“You need a lot of great people pulling in the same direction, but you also do need an element of good luck.”

The phrase of needing “people pulling in the same direction” was one Reid used to describe why his tenure in Philly didn’t last during his introductory news conference with the Chiefs in early 2013. He didn’t offer more detail, and its ambiguity suggested several interpretations, but Reid had lost some power by the end.

He was often able to keep Lurie at bay, but a series of unfortunate coaching hires had the owner champing at the bit, and with rising GM Howie Roseman wanting more sway, Reid was likely to be stripped of authority over personnel had he stayed.

But the Chiefs offered Reid a do-over and a chance for him to reframe his role and take with him from Philly the assistants who would allow for a new hierarchy. He would be just “head coach” and would take back offensive play-calling, which meant a split from longtime aide Marty Mornhinweg.

Doug Pederson would be promoted from quarterbacks coach to offensive coordinator and Nagy from quality control to quarterbacks coach in the move. This would allow Reid to have a succession plan in place should his assistants get better opportunities elsewhere.

“That first team meeting, I remember how important that [was] and the look in the guys’ eyes,” Nagy said. “And you build that culture. It’s about sustaining the culture and that’s what he’s done a great job of, and you do that with people you trust.

“There’s not a lot of movement within his staff. Every now and then there are some changes here and there, but for the most part he stays consistent with that.”

Reid had a similar organizational structure in place when he first arrived in Philly that allowed for the Eagles to absorb top assistants like Brad Childress, Ron Rivera, John Harbaugh, Spagnuolo, and others leaving for promotions.

He also had mainstays like defensive coordinator Jim Johnson before his death, tight ends coach Tom Melvin, and head trainer Rick Burkholder. But what Reid sought the most from his coaches, according to Spagnuolo, has been consistent throughout the years.

“Andy hired a staff that he knew were a bunch of good teachers,” Spagnuolo said. “He knew that was important in pro football. I think to a man, all the guys he’s hired have that.”

Melvin has been there since near the beginning. He was with Reid at San Francisco State and Northern Arizona in the mid-1980s when they were just assistants, followed him to Philly in 1999, and they’ve been together ever since.

The 62-year-old Melvin had to check off certain boxes to remain in Reid’s orbit. Reid can be loyal, but one constant has been how he sees the pieces fitting into his vision of a championship-caliber team.

“Dealing with Andy is more than you [reporters] get to see. It’s more of a personal deal,” Melvin said. “It’s always meaningful in that regard. … It’s the same with players. There are more talented coaches that don’t necessarily fit.

“It doesn’t make it wrong, doesn’t make it bad. It just means he surrounds himself with good people, good players. The team chemistry, the chemistry on the staff, that’s all important to him.”

Reid’s loyalty only goes so far. He has fired assistants when he thought it necessary, most notably late in his Eagles tenure when he dumped defensive coordinators Sean McDermott and Juan Castillo.

Last offseason, longtime Chiefs assistant and former Eagles wide receiver Greg Lewis took a lateral move to the Baltimore Ravens. But Reid has been around so long that former aides like Castillo and Ted Williams have sons (Greg and Dan) in Kansas City in entry-level coaching and scouting positions.

It may suggest the kind of nepotism that has long been associated with the NFL. Reid had his middle son, Britt, on staff for years until he crashed his pickup truck into two parked cars while under the influence of alcohol, injuring two young children, in February 2021.

Britt Reid was subsequently fired and in November 2022 was sentenced to three years in prison. Andy Reid’s youngest son, Spencer, is currently an assistant strength and conditioning coach with the Chiefs.

Football is the family business, after all. And Reid has long fostered an environment in which coaches who left for bigger jobs, like Nagy and Spagnuolo, can return to the comfort of his staff.

“There’s a loyalty, a trust when you go through the highs and lows,” Nagy said. “You know you’ve got guys who got your back. I think Coach has done that. That’s why he sticks to the people that he knows he can trust.”

Nagy and Spanuolo, former head coaches, have certainly contributed to the Chiefs’ recent success, but the branches from Reid’s coaching tree — which has produced championship winners in Pederson and Harbaugh — have yet to outgrow its base.

They all willingly acknowledge how they’ve profited from Reid’s greatness — from Pinkston, who was hired as a first-time running backs coach last offseason, to Veach, who started at the very bottom as an Eagles coaching intern in 2004.

Veach would eventually transition to the scouting department under Roseman in 2010, but there was no doubt in his mind who he would follow when Reid was fired two years later.

“I think when that season started winding down, I remember having a conversation with Coach that if he were to end up somewhere else, he’d have interest,” Veach said. “It was mutual because he had done so much for me that I knew that if I had that opportunity I would go.”

While Reid no longer had nominal control over personnel with the Chiefs, it was understood that he still ran the show in Kansas City. John Dorsey was originally hired to be GM, but he lasted only four years on the job before Veach replaced him in July 2017.

While his promotion came three months after the Chiefs traded up for Mahomes in the first round of the draft, Veach was instrumental in the selection. Reid, of course, made the ultimate decision, but mostly because of Veach’s evaluation, which had stretched back to the Texas Tech star’s freshman season.

The pick would forever alter Reid’s legacy. He’s been to six straight AFC championship games since Mahomes became the starter, he’s won more overall games with the Chiefs (143) than with the Eagles (140) in three fewer seasons, and is only 70 regular-season wins behind Don Shula’s record of 328.

While the pairing of a generational quarterback and coach has been mutually beneficial, Mahomes has those close to Reid predicting that he’ll keep at it until he no longer can.

“It’s a challenge right now, but it’s also fun,” Melvin said. “I always think Pat makes it challenging to keep him going, getting him better every day. … I think as long as it’s fun for him, he’ll keep doing it.”

Melvin, Nagy, and others who have been with him since the Eagles — and those who have joined him since with the Chiefs — know they stand to benefit.