KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The most contentious and delicious storyline in the NFL is not the Chiefs’ problem. The Packers and Aaron Rodgers created their own mess, and they are the ones who will need to find a resolution.
The Chiefs are on the other end of the spectrum of football harmony. Their players vacation together. They joke about which teammates are (and are not) allowed to babysit. They play corny board games together.
It should not go unnoticed that while players around the league routinely skip (voluntary) OTAs, the Chiefs have one of the NFL’s highest participation rates for offseason workouts.
The Packers’ drama is not the Chiefs’ drama, and is relevant here mostly as a gossip item.
“I’m sure they’ll work it out,” Chiefs coach Andy Reid said. “Things happen in this league, and it’s always happened in professional sports. Every situation is different. We’ve all had to deal with different situations. You just work through it and try to keep communication open.”
Maybe that depends on the definition of “work it out,” but the Packers serve as useful guidance for the Chiefs.
Ten years ago, the Packers were the Chiefs. The Packers were the team with a Super Bowl championship and a young MVP quarterback surrounded by good vibes and better players. Rodgers wrapped himself in Wisconsin, referencing his voter registration and driver’s license issued in the place he called home.
He called playing for the Packers “a privilege.” He thanked the organization for standing behind him, and for believing in him.
Sound familiar?
Much has been said about what went wrong between Rodgers and the team in Green Bay. Investigative stories have been published and, someday, perhaps, a book will be, too.
But these words aren’t about the Packers. These words are about how the Chiefs can maintain their cohesion of the moment — particularly between Patrick Mahomes and the coaches and front office — in a league where nothing stays the same for long.
Reid is probably the best person to start with. This is his organization now. He sets both the example and tone. He’s been criticized for plenty in his 22 seasons as a head coach — some fair, some not — but one of his consistent strengths has been getting everyone to push in the same direction.
Reid is fond of calling his profession “a people business.” The rest of us often obsess over play-calling and strategy and fourth-down calls. But the people stuff is just as important. Reid has said that’s one of the best lessons he learned from LaVell Edwards, his coach at BYU.
Reid never saw himself as a coach until Edwards talked him into it. Edwards, who died five years ago at 86, must have seen some of himself in Reid.
This is a relatively small thing, but Reid is unwavering about giving those around him all the credit while he takes the blame. He’ll never publicly criticize a player, even if it’s warranted. The process of play-calling is fluid and, when asked, Reid will often say that the calls that worked were his assistants’ ideas, and the ones that didn’t were his.
That line is self-aware and always offered with a chuckle, but his public crediting of Matt Nagy’s play-calling as the Chiefs escaped a midseason slump in 2017 was a major reason Nagy had his choice of head-coaching jobs that offseason.
Here’s something different: Reid empowers players. The stereotypical football coach is controlling, demanding, unrelenting. Reid asks players for guidance and asks how he might help. He gives them restaurant recommendations, remembers the names of their wives and kids. He lets them design plays, and then name them.
He trusts them — how many times has he said he wants them to let their personalities show? — and in turn they feel valued. That loyalty is powerful.
NFL players are commodities. They navigate a brutal sport with razor-sharp demands. Even the biggest stars know they will be cut the second their salary-cap hit outweighs their production. The Chiefs make their own business decisions, but Reid makes sure the players feel human. You can see that in how players talk about him, even after they’ve been released or traded.
The best example might be Alex Smith. This is easy to forget now, but the former Chiefs quarterback who recently retired in Washington made the Pro Bowl and threw for career-high yardage the season before the Chiefs drafted Mahomes. The Chiefs went 12-4 that year. They won the division, secured a first-round playoff bye and hosted a playoff game.
Smith had every reason to believe that with another piece or two he could help the Chiefs to the Super Bowl. Instead, they used that draft capital to select his replacement.
That is eerily similar to at least part of what Rodgers is upset about. Rodgers is a far superior player to Smith, and no two situations are identical. But the broad strokes are similar: contending team, mainstay quarterback, team trades up to draft a younger heir apparent.
Huge difference: Smith knew it was coming, because the Chiefs told him. Rodgers didn’t, because the Packers didn’t.
Reid communicated the team’s position in an end-of-season meeting with Smith, and club officials kept him informed throughout the process. Before officially executing the trade on draft night, Reid made sure Smith was called.
The Chiefs eventually traded Smith to a team that he came to believe did not want him and actively tried to make him fail, and he still speaks exclusively positive about Reid and the Chiefs.
This is a good spot to acknowledge Mahomes’ role in this, too. He is something like the perfect teammate (relatable, hyper-talented, ultra competitive) and also something like the perfect employee (coachable, agreeable, energetic).
How long can that be reasonably expected to continue?
People change. That’s especially true as they go from their 20s to 30s and has often been true in sports as successes and failures accumulate.
Mahomes is not the same man he was at 22, when he took that first snap in San Diego. His standards are exceptionally high. We have not yet seen how he and the team will deal with true failure together yet.
The Chiefs will change, too. They will be able to keep some stars, but not others. Mahomes won’t always have the league’s fastest receiver and most dynamic tight end to throw to. Reid is 63. He won’t coach forever.
The Packers’ mess is a long way from where the Chiefs are now, but it wasn’t too long ago that the Packers would’ve found their current drama unimaginable. There cannot be a simple explanation for what went wrong, or one person to blame.
The Chiefs remain as well-positioned for long-term success as any franchise has been in recent memory.
But nobody will feel satisfied without more Super Bowl wins, and making that happen goes beyond cap management and productive drafts. The Packers turned into a model of what not to do.
The Chiefs are a few years into presenting the opposite, but the biggest obstacles remain ahead.
