The history of the Kansas City Chiefs is one of the great sports stories you will ever find. Much of it has to do with the origin of how they came to be, propelled largely by one man with a unique knack for creating enthralling entertainment out of thin air. Lamar Hunt. To explain Hunt's singular impact on not just the creation of the Kansas City Chiefs, but how the AFL and NFL came to be as a whole, is an undertaking for another day.
The Chiefs were originally the charter team of the AFL, founded in 1959, based in Dallas under the team name Texans with Hunt at the helm, before relocating to Kansas City in 1963, rebranding as the Chiefs. From then to now, the franchise has endured some extremely high highs and painfully low lows. But through all of it, there was a short list of head coaches leading more than just 53 players, but a staff, a franchise, and a city.
As the first story in KC Kingdom's newest offseason series, "Chiefs All-Time Mount Rushmore," I dive into the four greatest head coaches in the Chiefs' nearly 70-year history.
Chiefs coaching history includes highs and lows, but Hank Stram and Andy Reid defined eras
The Mentor: Hank Stram
Stram was the inaugural coach of the then Texans before the team relocated to Kansas City and became the Chiefs. Much of his time coaching was when the team was still in the AFL from 1960-69. In those 10 seasons, Stram went 87-48-5, becoming the winningest coach in AFL history.
Stram, alongside Hall of Fame quarterback Len Dawson were a force, winning the 1962 AFL championship, and making two Super Bowls in both '66 and '69. The Chiefs famously won the big game in 1969, not knowing that it would be the last time in 50 years that same feat would be accomplished.
He then coached for five more seasons from 1970-74 after the move to the NFL and had another four winning seasons. Many might remember Stram best for his out-of-the-box coaching style, where he agreed to be miked up for the Chiefs' Super Bowl IV victory, where he can be heard telling his players to "matriculate the ball down the field." Or perhaps for his personally designed 65 toss power trap play that scored the Chiefs their first touchdown in that game.
He may not have known it at the time, but Stram was not only the Chiefs first ever head coach, but he was a man who would never be forgotten and become an icon amongst Chiefs lore and fandom. Hank Stram was a Chief through and through.
Martyball: Marty Schottenheimer
The post-Hank Stram era featured a nearly 15-year drought, where the Chiefs captured just one playoff birth off of their lone winning season, quickly getting trounced by the New York Jets 35-15. That all changed when the Cleveland Browns shooed away Marty Schottenheimer, making way for his coming to Kansas City.
Schottenheimer's decade-long tenure with the Chiefs from 1989-98 was the culmination of hard-nosed, mistake-free, smash-mouth football that propelled the Chiefs to winning seasons in his first nine years, six straight playoff births from '90-'95, and finishing no lower than second in the AFC West except for 1998.
While the Chiefs under Schotty never made it past the AFC Championship game, he got little help at quarterback, the opposite of what Stram succeeded with. Despite having to work with the likes of Steve DeBerg, Dave Krieg, Steve Bono, and Elvis Grbac, Kansas City was still able to reach double-digit wins consistently, some years as good as a 13-3 record in 1995 and '97.
While Schottenheimer may have never gotten over the hump, he's certainly not to blame for it. We've seen time and again in NFL history that a head coach is generally only as good as his quarterback. In Marty's case, he defied the odds of what one could accomplish, in spite of putrid QB talent.
"Coach": Dick Vermeil
If Mount Rushmore consisted of three heads, Vermeil would be the first one off this list, and it really wouldn't be close. But given that it's four and we're playing by the rules, he makes the list. And some would probably argue that it's deserving. Vermeil's time in KC was short, and his Hall of Fame case was certainly for what he accomplished earlier in his career, winning the 1999 Super Bowl with the St. Louis Rams.
But he gave it all he had in those five years with the Chiefs from 2001-05. He brought with him the then Rams starter, turned backup, Trent Green, to be the team's signal-caller. That pairing proved worth their salt, alongside a truly elite host of weapons in Priest Holmes, Tony Gonzalez, Dante Hall, Eddie Kennison, and an outstanding offensive line.
After a rocky first couple of seasons where the Chiefs went a combined 14-18, Vermeil found his stride in 2003, going 13-3, winning the division, but losing to the Indianapolis Colts in the Chiefs' lone playoff appearance under Vermeil.
With an overall regular season record of 44-36, Vermeil's tenure certainly doesn't knock anyone's socks off. But he kept the Chiefs respectable for a handful of years before the franchise entered a low that felt impossible to get out of.
Big Red: Andy Reid
From 2006-12, the Chiefs were led by three different head coaches: Herm Edwards, Todd Haley, and Romeo Crennel, who won four games or fewer in four of those seven years. They never even came close to winning a single playoff game. The franchise was in the pits of hell, and everybody knew it.
Until Chiefs Chairman and CEO, and son of Lamar Hunt, Clark Hunt, took a chance and hired the former Philadelphia Eagles lead man Andy Reid. Reid came to KC on the back of a 4-12 season with Philly and was taking over a 2-14 Chiefs squad, who had known little to no success.
But in his first year, Reid powered the Chiefs to a nine-game improvement and an 11-5 record, as well as smoking the Houston Texans 30-0 in the wild card round of the playoffs. It only went up from there as the once-denounced coach became a beloved figure in Chiefs Kingdom, helping propel Kansas City, alongside superstar QB Patrick Mahomes, to 10 straight double-digit win seasons, nine straight AFC West titles, and seven consecutive conference championship game appearances from 2018-24.
And the most important accomplishment was being the offensive-minded guru behind five trips to the Super Bowl in a seven-year span, and winning three of them, along with the NFL's first back-to-back in two decades. While he may come off as a big guy who loves his players as much as he loves hamburgers and Tommy Bahama shirts, Reid is a hard-ass dude who expects excellence in every facet of the process. He enters his age-68 season and his 14th with the Chiefs, hoping to get the team back on track to winning ways.
Reid currently ranks fourth all-time in head coach wins (307) and second all-time in postseason wins (26) behind only Bill Belichick's 31. The future first ballot Hall of Famer enters his age-68 season and his 14th with the Chiefs, hoping to get the team back on track to winning ways.
Add us as a preferred source on Google