Chiefs' Clark Hunt explains the courting of Andy Reid

Clark Hunt says there's no time to relax now. The Kansas City Chiefs are interviewing assistant coaching candidates as well as GM candidates this week, Hunt told Bob Fescoe and Josh Klingler of 610 Sports on Friday morning.

It's a good thing, though, that Hunt is busy right now. Talking to Fescoe and Klingler, he said that the last time around the Chiefs were late in hiring their head coach, which led to a limited supply of candidates. This time around, he said, he wanted to be on top of it.

So Hunt fired Romeo Crennel on Monday and made a call that day to Andy Reid.

"I was fortunate that on Monday when I placed my call to him that I was the first phone call he picked up," Hunt told Fescoe and Klingler. "He had a very busy day in Philadelphia as you can imagine with his players, saying goodbye to the Eagles organization and just by chance I was the first call that he picked up and I was able to get a meeting scheduled on a tentative basis, which was later confirmed, and it was great."

Hunt said he could've spent "an entire day" talking to Reid, "whether it's football, his family or just life in general." That's essentially what Hunt did in a nine-hour interview with Reid.
He said that he knew early on in that interview that he wanted Reid to be his head coach.

"It was probably sometime in the first couple of hours," Hunt said of when he knew Reid was his guy. "With all the candidates I made a point of sitting down with them myself first and spending time with them and getting to know them as a person. He had tremendous energy and we clicked right from the get go. So I knew pretty early [he was the guy I wanted] and I had my fingers crossed as well."

As for GM Scott Pioli, who was fired on Friday, hours before Reid arrived in Kansas City, Hunt said he had several conversations with Pioli about his future over the last few weeks of his time in Kansas City. Ultimately, he decided it was best to move on.

Unfortunately, Hunt didin't break any news on the Chiefs assistant coach and GM search while talking on 610 Sports. He did say that he hopes to have that hammered down sometime "in the near future".