In the aftermath of yet another AFC championship game triumph, the coach who grew up in Hollywood, the son of a scenic artist who once shaped set backgrounds and fashioned props for movies, plays and television shows, ambled toward the victory stage. En route, he bumped into the most famous singer-songwriter on the planet, another example of what’s now just ‘normal’ or ‘Sunday’ in Kansas City. They embraced, the 66-year-old coach and the 35-year-old singer/songwriter/icon. Television cameras crowded close nearby.
Andy Reid, it turns out, is a certified Swiftie. In fact, he knew Taylor Swift and her family long before she reached anything near her current level of fame.
“Thank you,” Swift told Reid. “Just thank you.”
Heavy significance was baked into that moment. The pop star began dating Reid’s Canton-bound tight end, Travis Kelce, during the 2023 season. The coach never had an issue with their courtship, describing each as a great “escape” for the other. He lovingly referred to Kelce as Swift’s waterboy in an interview with The Athletic. But even that is not the entire story.
“Listen,” Reid told Sports Illustrated two days after their viral hug, “I’ve known her longer than everybody here.”
Swift grew up in West Reading, Penn. Her father, a stockbroker named Scott, adored many Philadelphia-based sports teams, including the Philadelphia Eagles, Reid’s former team and, of course, next Super Bowl opponent. “She was just a little scooter,” he says, before revealing there’s even more to their story—and this “more” features him.
Swift to Kelce, early into their courtship: “Hey, I know one of your coaches and his wife.”
Kelce, per Reid’s understanding, asked the obvious: Which coach? His instincts did not lead him to the mustachioed magician of offensive football. Big Red? No way. Until … Swift told him exactly who, and it was exactly that: “Coach Reid and Mrs. Reid,” she said.
The tight end smiled that big, Travis Kelce grin, the one that can fill a football stadium when he’s happy. Kelce then responded, simply and with emphasis, “Oh … no.”
One postscript to the hug seen round the world: On the same videos that captured the Swift–Reid interaction, rookie wideout Xavier Worthy can be heard exclaiming, “Oh, s—! She’s taller than me!”
Perhaps Swift, then, is something of a good luck charm, even as the Kingdom’s most famous member. Reid laughs. At the intersection of the Chiefs’ growing international renown and Swift’s established stardom, K.C. remains a throwback to earlier NFL days, a franchise tethered to a large city that still moves more like a small town. To embrace both, to be both, that’s part of Kansas City’s growth within the dynasty the team created—to ascend higher than ever into wider, even worldwide consciousness, but to never lose the soul that long ago made the Chiefs distinct among NFL franchises.
A.J. Brown’s reading habits
SI’s conversation with Eagles wideout A.J. Brown last week started in an unfamiliar and yet totally obvious place. I didn’t want to ask him so much about Inner Excellence, the book from a top mental-skills coach that television cameras captured him reading on the sideline. I was less interested in the “gotcha” laced into most, if not all, retellings of his in-game reading break. I’ve written about NFL players who read books in team meetings and NFL players who ate hot dogs during games. This was that unusual. It wasn’t, as billed, UFO-sighting-unusual. Not even close.
I wanted to ask Brown about something else I noticed in that TV shot: just how dog-eared the book in his hands truly was. Worn describes the condition best. Couldn’t have been a single read. Looked more like he had gone through it at least 10 times. I asked him about that, about what he reads.
AJB: A lot of motivational books, a lot of self-help books. Just trying to focus on my mental as best I can. That’s a way for me to grow and challenge myself in other areas. And that comes with self-belief and me giving myself positive affirmations and me talking to myself.
SI: When did you start that process?
AJB: Like two-and-a-half years ago.
SI: Any particular reason?
AJB: My trainer really has a strong effect on me. He gives me books. He has a little book club, with his staff, and they’ll come in and talk about books or athletes or the way somebody runs; whatever they want, really. I was just sitting on [Inner Excellence]. I just started to read.
SI: What are you reading now? (Much more on this in our Super Bowl cover story).
AJB: My playbook.
Tell me a story: Giants actually offered Saquon Barkley more money
In regard to Saquon Barkley’s contract with the Eagles, his trainer, Ryan Flaherty, says one Giants offer came in higher than what Barkley signed for in Philadelphia. He shares this story to illuminate Barkley’s mindset. The running back viewed that calculus in multiple ways. He wasn’t happy with how the Giants handled the end in New York. He never said so publicly. He understood the tension. And, while he reconciled the tension with his internal misgivings, he still wanted to remain loyal. Even before this season. When Giants brass decided to move on, he saw not fewer dollars in Philadelphia but a realistic chance to win a Super Bowl. “It’s rare upon rare for someone to go to a division rival and everybody just be like, ‘Well, we respect you because of how you handled that,’ ” Flaherty says. “He held to his principles. That’s who he is.”
Flaherty doesn’t say the awkward part … doesn’t say who Barkley isn’t. He’s not another disposable number on a spreadsheet. Never was. Never will be. Make of that what you will.
Barkley simply wishes the narratives would change. But not those mischaracterizing him, necessarily. “I don’t know why [football] is framed this way,” he says. “I’m gonna get to the bottom of this. I don’t know how we got, like in this game, to be a quarterback-driven league or a superstar-driven league. It doesn’t work like that.”
Then to now: Hurts’s 2023 stats vs. ’24 stats
This season, Jalen Hurts didn’t break any calculators with his offensive statistics. All that shows is how malleable and misleading statistics can be.
Hurts’s stat line in the 2023 regular season: 3,858 passing yards, 65.4 completion percentage, 605 rushing yards, 38 total touchdowns.
His stat line this season: 2,903 passing yards, 68.7 completion percentage, 630 rushing yards, 32 total touchdowns.
For any hand-wringing over Hurts’s performance this year, just look at those numbers. They tell the story of this Eagles season. Yes, his passing yards dropped significantly. But those and many more went to Barkley on the ground. This approach made the Eagles more multi-dimensional, their tendencies far more difficult to peg. His accuracy, meanwhile, went up. His success percentage—a stat that deems passes successful if they pick up 40 percent of the required yardage on first down, 60 percent on second down and 100 percent on third and fourth down—was nearly identical to the previous season. His quarterback rating was far higher (103.7 from 89.1), as was his QBR (65.7 from 60.1). He completed the same number of game-winning drives as last season (four) and the same number of fourth-quarter comebacks (three).
Down year? Only for anyone who wants it to be.
On background: Will Eagles use Barkley as decoy?
Perhaps this is no more than mere misdirection. But three separate sources who understand the Eagles offense and have direct knowledge of its evolution openly wondered in separate interviews with SI whether Barkley’s transcendent season opens a window to do something entirely different offensively in the Super Bowl. Hurts, after all, played a nearly flawless game in the first championship meeting between his Eagles and these Chiefs two years ago. Same applies to the NFC championship victory over the Washington Commanders. Maybe Barkley wins his first championship as a really talented decoy. Or maybe they want the public to believe that, in which case, expect a heavy dose of runs.
Quote without context:
“When I left high school, I was going to be a phys-ed teacher, come back to my high school, teach phys-ed for the rest of my life, and coach football.”
Context:
Believe it or not, that’s Steve Spagnuolo, Kansas City’s elite defensive coordinator. He probably made the right decision.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Super Bowl LIX Newsletter: Andy Reid, It Turns Out, Is a Certified Swiftie.
