The Kansas City Chiefs offense is in a rut and they needed to make a change. According to reports from ESPN’s Chris Mortensen and NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport, Chiefs coach Andy Reid is giving up playcalling duties to offensive coordinator Matt Nagy. He will call the plays Sunday against the Jets.
Chiefs coach Andy Reid is benching....himself. He has has planned to hand over play calling to OC Matt Nagy for today's game vs. Jets although Reid will continue to have oversight, per team sources.
— Chris Mortensen (@mortreport) December 3, 2017
#Chiefs coach Andy Reid is giving up play-calling to promising OC Matt Nagy, as @mortreport said. Nagy gets the playsheet, Reid will oversee and assist, source said. A collaborative effort.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) December 3, 2017
Here is Nagy’s bio and here is a good story on him if you’re not familiar. Andy Reid has given up playcalling duties before, as Mort noted. He did so with Brad Childress in Philadelphia and Doug Pederson earlier in Kansas City (supposedly the second half of games at one point went to Pederson).
This tells me a couple of things. First, Andy Reid really likes Matt Nagy and the Chiefs offense needed some sort of change, any change. This is quite the trust to put in the kid (OK, he’s 39 years old). I don’t know what was wrong with the offense and I’m not sure that the Chiefs did either if they couldn’t fix it but they needed to do something different. This is different.
The other thing I think it tells me is that Nagy may be closer to a head coaching job than we realize. This will help Nagy’s resume for a future head coaching job if the Chiefs offense does well with him calling plays. With the Colts job potentially coming open this offseason and former Chiefs executive Chris Ballard running the show there it certainly makes me wonder, especially with a move like this.