Andy Reid’s Eagles tenure was a success even if he never delivered a Super Bowl win

PHOENIX ― Coming off a dreadful 3-13 season and a second consecutive losing campaign, Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie knew it was time to make a change.

Ray Rhodes was shown the door, fired after four seasons as head coach, setting the stage for “a large, lumbering, slightly rumpled man with a walrus mustache,” as former Inquirer columnist Bill Lyon once wrote.

The year was 1999. The man with the mustache was Andy Reid.

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Reid, a relative unknown at the time, would be making the Grand Canyon-size leap from one year as the Green Bay Packers quarterbacks coach to becoming the head football coach in maybe the most unforgiving sports city in America. He was just 40 years old.

The hire was the definition of a gamble and was met with harsh skepticism. Handing the keys over to a young “offensive genius” without coordinator experience may be all the rage in the modern NFL. But in 1999, Reid, who became the second-youngest coach in the league at the time, was viewed as a rather unconventional choice.

Lurie’s decision proved to be a masterstroke, as Reid went on to become the franchise’s all-time winningest coach and lead the Eagles to six division titles, five conference championship games, and an appearance in Super Bowl XXXIX.

He didn’t just lead the Eagles into a period of unparalleled success for the organization on the field, he endeared himself to the city. Beloved by players and affectionately tagged “Big Red” by fans, Reid’s unquantifiable bond with Philadelphia and its residents has persisted long after he traded midnight green for the red and yellow of the Kansas City Chiefs a decade ago.

On Sunday, Reid’s story will come full circle, as the 64-year-old coach faces off against his former team in Super Bowl LVII.

“I had 14 great years there, I loved every minute of it,” Reid said at his media availability Tuesday. “It’s a great organization. I still am close with the people there. It was great to see the kids that we had drafted that are now these veteran players, All-Pro players on that team. I had a chance to give them a hug last night and now we go our separate ways and get ready to play.”

While Reid may have been relatively young and inexperienced in 1999, he was not unprepared.

In fact, it was Reid’s preparation and attention to detail that separated him from the other candidates, including Pittsburgh Steelers defensive coordinator Jim Haslett, the other finalist for the job.

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Reid’s secret weapon? A binder full of notes, taken meticulously throughout his seven-year tenure with the Packers. This would serve as Reid’s blueprint and cheat sheet for building a successful team.

“The book had everything you could possibly imagine if you were preparing yourself to become a head coach in the NFL,” former Eagles president Joe Banner said in 2020.

Reid couldn’t have known that these notes would land him an NFL head-coaching gig, as the Eagles were the only team that expressed interest in him for that role at the time.

“I was lucky enough to work for Mike Holmgren in Green Bay, and I tried to take all the notes down that I could when I was there and kind of organize them,” Reid said earlier this week. “I didn’t know necessarily that was going to be for becoming a head coach, as I was a position coach at that time. But when I had the opportunity, I could break that out and I knew what was on every page because I had written it out myself and so I was able to use that as just a reference when we did the interview.”

Lurie, who was hiring a second coach in five seasons since buying the team in 1994, and the Eagles brass were blown away by the way Reid had mapped out a plan for how he would attack seemingly every facet of an NFL franchise, down to the most minute detail.

“The thing that maybe was most impressive to us was he had ranked every coach at every single position one through 10, including college guys,” Banner said. “He literally had a draft board of coaches. He would have a wide receiver coach as the sixth-rated guy, and you’d ask him why he was No. 6, and the extent of detail and insight he showed in answering those questions was really stunning. To this day, I’ve seen nothing like it from any other coach.”

The Eagles took their lumps in Reid’s first season at the helm.

Veteran backup quarterback Doug Pederson struggled while keeping the seat warm for No. 2 overall pick Donovan McNabb, and the Eagles limped to a 5-11 record and a third straight year without sniffing the postseason.

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“I look back on that first year, and things were rough, and you really didn’t want to step out of the office,” Reid told The Inquirer in 2007. “I used to think, ‘My goodness, I knew this was going to be tough, but this is really tough.’ … At the same time, it built a little toughness in me as a person. It put my back to the wall, and I think it put all the players’ backs to the wall, and it made everybody kind of come together and fight.”

That season would prove to be the foundation of one of the most successful eras in franchise history. With a blossoming star in dual-threat quarterback McNabb, and Reid finding his footing as a head coach, the Eagles won at least 11 games in each of the next five seasons.

There were the tremendous highs of winning four straight NFC East titles and making four straight NFC championship games from 2001 to 2004. But they were dampened by the heartbreak of losing three of those games, and then coming up agonizingly short in the Super Bowl to the New England Patriots in the 2004 season.

While Reid’s Eagles were undoubtedly one of the most consistent and successful teams of the decade, ultimately, they were never able to claim the one trophy to put a bow on all they had accomplished.

“We were all there to win a Super Bowl, but we came up short,” Reid said in 2020. “That’s the bottom line. But listen, we got there. A lot of people never had that opportunity.”

While Reid and the Eagles remained relevant and successful for most of the rest of his tenure, they never quite reached the same heights. And after a 4-12 season in 2012 followed an 8-8 campaign the year before, the writing was on the wall for a divorce. The Eagles players knew it. The fans knew it. Reid knew it. It was time and Lurie fired Reid on Dec. 31.

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“Everything doesn’t last forever,” Reid said Monday. “So, you know, we all had our time there. And Jeffrey was very honest with us. I think we saw what Jeffrey saw. And sometimes change can be good.”

Reid departed Philadelphia with a team-record 130 wins, more than double the next man on the list, Greasy Neale, and a .583 winning percentage. The only thing missing was that elusive Super Bowl win.

“I don’t,” Reid told reporters when asked in 2013 if he had any regrets about his time with the Eagles. “I can leave Philadelphia saying that I gave it my all.”

It took all of one week for Reid to land on his feet with the Chiefs after being fired by the Eagles.

As he did in Philadelphia, Reid quickly dove into his new city and became an adored transplant with his authenticity and humor. In 10 seasons, he has led the Chiefs to the playoffs nine times, and armed with the game’s top gunslinger in Patrick Mahomes, Kansas City has won six straight AFC West titles.

Most importantly, Reid finally put the “can’t win the big one” narrative to bed once and for all during the 2019 season as the Chiefs outlasted the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl LIV, 31-20. While few people are icons in one city, Reid has earned that distinction in two.

It was in the lead-up and the moments directly following Kansas City’s triumph when Reid’s impact on Philadelphia shone brightest. There was genuine support for him. Reid had earned that admiration and his quest to finally get the hump off his back became the biggest national storyline around the game. The Eagles might not have been playing in the Super Bowl but, in a way, it almost felt like they were through their ex-coach.

The love was just as strong from his former players.

“Congratulations, Coach. Congratulations. I told you I would be shedding tears of joy, and I did,” Eagles legend Dawkins said via video at the time. “Man, I am so proud. ... You blessed so many people along the way, to help them redeem themselves.”

“So happy for the guy. Best I ever had as a coach. That’s my coach congratulations Andy Reid,” McNabb tweeted.

Three years later, current players on both sides of Sunday’s Super Bowl echo similar sentiments about “Big Red.”

“He truly cares about every player he has coached,” Eagles center Jason Kelce said Monday. “He loves them, and I felt that right away coming to Philadelphia.”

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Meanwhile, Chiefs defensive end Frank Clark called Reid “the best figure, if not one of the most positive things I’ve had in my life.”

Reid, who is fifth on the career wins list with 247, will be a Hall of Famer whether or not he wins another Super Bowl on Sunday. Eagles fans certainly won’t be rooting for him this time around, but he will always have a special place in their hearts.

This is the legacy of Andy Reid in Philadelphia, a coach adored by players and fans, even if he never won the ultimate prize there. Not bad for a “rumpled man with a walrus mustache.”