To seriously answer the question, here's what the tree looks like:
That's not too bad. Obviously some failures, but as head coaches both Harbaugh and Pederson have won a SB. Add in that Rivera has done a lot, McDermott has been extremely solid for a complete rebuild and Nagy has some early success and that onto itself would put his coaching tree above a more accomplished coach like Bill Belichick.
To focus on his offense for a bit I think he really understands the QB position well and does all he can to help them succeed. I'm an Eagles fan and I can say with a certain level of confidence that without Andy Reid McNabb would have ended up like the two picks that were around him in Tim Couch and Akili Smith. We have to remember, McNabb was not an accurate QB. For him to have a 2:1 TD to Interception ratio and a 59% completion there was a lot of QB friendly game planning. I'd add in that McNabb was hurt a lot. Weather it was Jeff Garcia, AJ Feeley, Kevin Kolb or Mike Vick, they all performed their career best while Andy was calling the plays.
Let's map that over to KC. Alex Smith was his best version of NFL QB while Andy was calling plays. We don't know what Mahomes is without him, but we know he's one of the NFL's best QBs.
Finally, I'd add that Reid has changed a lot throughout the years. When he started with the Eagles he was a strict Walsh/Holmgren West Coast offense. I shit you not, they didn't run anything out of shotgun at the beginning. Towards the end it was our base formation. When looking at the X's and O's side and looking to create mismatches that is an area he's continued to learn, adjust and ultimately evolve. Andy will never try to take the spotlight away from a player, but a good chunk of the Mahomes love should be allocated to play design.
With that being said Andy Reid has some massive flaws:
- Outsources the defense all together - I remember when the late/great Jim Johnson died he ended up promoting Sean McDermott, who was not ready yet and then ultimately promoted his OL coach, Juan Castillo, to become the DC (fun fact: the DL coach, Jim Washburn, would call
Juan 'Juanita' to the DL group).
- Clock Management - He just sucks late in the half/game. Always been terrible.
- Passes too much - I actually think he sacrifices some of the gameday balance to make sure his QB is in rhythm.
- Loyal to a fault - He's one of the ultimate players' coaches and gets a lot out of his guys, but he'll also stick with someone way past their expiry date. I'd actually classify his son's overdose death at the team facility in this as well. He wants someone to succeed so bad that he often overlooks their own personal limitations/demons.