Andy Reid has a cabal of talented assistant coaches roaming the Kansas City Chiefs sideline. But one may stand out more than most.
That’s because Porter Ellett, assistant running backs coach, only has one arm.
Ellett has been an important piece of the Chiefs success. He was hired as Reid’s senior assistant in 2017 before earning a promotion to offensive quality control coach in 2020. By 2024, he’d been named second-in-command of a running back room led by Isiah Pacheco and Samaje Perine.
Ellett took an unconventional path to the sideline — especially for someone whose high school didn’t even have a football team. Reid saw him in a facilities management role on a visit to Baylor University, where Ellett was working toward a graduate degree. He left his job at Goldman Sachs to pursue his NFL dream. From an interview with Alan Olson:
I was attending grad school there, studying sports management, and then working in the facilities at the football stadium, McLean Stadium, as I was studying. That is how I ended up here. Coach Reid called me; took the job; came to Kansas City.
From there, Ellett worked his way up the team’s organizational chart, soaking up wisdom from the winningest head coach in both Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles franchise history.
ESPN ran a profile on Ellett prior to this year’s regular season meeting between the Chiefs and Buffalo Bills, chronicling his life from the moment he lost his arm as a child in a farm accident to his rise up the NFL ranks.
Ellett went from a potential career in finance to a place on one of the winningest coaching staffs in NFL history. That’s remarkable for anyone, one arm or two.
