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I like to gamble sometimes. This minor hobby of mine sometimes leads me to some interesting reads like one book that suggested teams struggle against coaches who were recently on their staff. The reasoning was the understudy coaches had inside information and knew how to beat their old bosses.
This is relevant because Doug Pederson’s Eagles will be facing off against the Chiefs next weekend in Arrowhead. I’m sure all of you know that Pederson used to be the offensive coordinator for the Chiefs from 2013-15.
I wanted to see how Reid performed against coaches who used to be a part of his system. The goal is to see if there is any reason to be afraid of the inside information Doug Pederson may have.
Reid’s Coaching Tree
I pulled Reid’s coaching tree from Wikipedia. Assistant coaches under Andy Reid who have become NFL head coaches:
- Brad Childress, Minnesota Vikings (2006–2010)
- John Harbaugh, Baltimore Ravens (2008–present)
- Steve Spagnuolo, St. Louis Rams (2009–2011)
- Leslie Frazier, Minnesota Vikings (2010–2013)
- Ron Rivera, Carolina Panthers (2011–present)
- Pat Shurmur, Cleveland Browns (2011–2012)
- Todd Bowles, New York Jets (2015–present)
- Doug Pederson, Philadelphia Eagles (2016–present)
- Sean McDermott, Buffalo Bills (2017–present)
Using these coaches and years I went back and tracked Reid’s performance against his old coaches.
Straight Up Numbers
Reid vs his Understudies
| Year | Week | Team | Coach | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Week | Team | Coach | Outcome |
| 2007 | 8 | @ Vikings | Brad Childress | W 23-16 |
| 2008 | 12 | @ Ravens | John Harbaugh | L 7-36 |
| 2008 | Wild Card | @ Vikings | Brad Childress | W 26-14 |
| 2010 | 16 | Vikings | Leslie Frasier | L 14-24 |
| 2011 | 1 | @ Rams | Steve Spagnuolo | W 31-13 |
| 2012 | 1 | @ Browns | Pat Shurmur | W 17-16 |
| 2012 | 2 | Ravens | John Harbaugh | W 24-23 |
| 2012 | 12 | Panthers | Ron Rivera | L 22-30 |
| 2015 | 15 | @ Ravens | John Harbaugh | W 34-14 |
| 2016 | 3 | Jets | Todd Bowles | W 24-3 |
| 2016 | 10 | @ Panthers | Ron Rivera | W 20-17 |
Reid boasts an overall record of 8-3 when facing one of his former assistants; this is a win percentage of 0.727. Compare this with Reid’s career win percentage of 0.604 and you can see Reid has fared better against his former coaching staff than other opponents.
It’s not a significant advantage, but I do believe it is safe to say Reid does not get punked by his ex-coaches.
Spread Numbers
Win/Loss totals are always important, but I wanted to get a more in depth look into how Reid has played against his former understudies.
I thought looking at the spread numbers may give an idea of how Reid performed against the general consensus. For instance, winning a game by one point against a bad Browns team compared to beating the spread against a bad team. This means Reid’s team’s played above their general perception for the game.
Andy Reid is 6-5 against the spread in these games. This means that Reid has done a fair job meeting the expectations placed on his teams heading into games where he faced an ex-coach. 6-5 is neither a disaster, nor a positive for a coach like Reid; it simply means Reid has performed typically in these games.
Recency/Relevancy
I want to use this space to shoot a hole in some of the stats I have brought up.
In 2015 Andy Reid beat John Harbaugh’s Ravens by a score of 34-14. At that time John Harbaugh hadn’t served as an assistant to Andy Reid in seven years. A lot can happen in seven years and just how relevant is John Harbaugh’s old knowledge of Andy Reid’s system after seven years? I don’t know....
If we look at games where it has been less than three years since the other team’s coach left Andy Reid’s system there are only three games to glean information from.
In those three games Andy Reid has gone 2-1. That’s not much information, but I just wanted to let you all know some of the numbers may or may not be relevant.
What Does it Mean?
So what does all of this information mean? It means that Reid is not susceptible to losing games against his former coaches and assistants.
Some of the stats should be taken with a small grain of salt because of the large gaps in time between a head coach leaving Andy Reid, and then facing Andy Reid again.
From all I’ve gathered I believe Doug Pederson will not be able to play the inside information angle and it will be business as usual for Reid and Co. However, that may not be your opinion .... Sounds like a good time for a poll.