KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Chiefs coach Andy Reid is a company guy when it comes to the NFL, so he will dutifully take part in the new in-game interview during the team's season-opener against the Ravens on Thursday night on KSHB 41/NBC.
He just isn't very enthusiastic about it.
“I'm not very good during games on interviews. I won't be very fancy with these interviews," Reid told local reporters Friday. "I don't know. Listen, I've got to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm an NFL-team guy, so I'm going to do it. But don't expect much.”
The 66-year-old Reid is decidedly old-school on the sideline, and he tends to have little patience for anything that takes his focus away from the field. But who could argue with that approach? Reid begins this season with 258 wins, fourth on the NFL's career list, and he has led Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs to three Super Bowl titles in the last five years.
They will try to become the first team in NFL history to hoist three consecutive Lombardi Trophies at the end of this season.
But it is exactly that Hall of Fame-worthy resume, coupled with the immense interest in the Chiefs — hello, Taylor Swift — that makes the idea of an in-game interview with the coach affectionately known as “Big Red” so appealing to NBC execs.
“Things that continue to differentiate us from others is taking viewers somewhere they could never go,” NBC coordinating producer Rob Hyland said. “Todd (Blackledge) and Cris (Collinsworth) played in the league and understand what it’s like, but 25 million people watching have never experienced what the players on the field or the coaches on the field experience.”
The in-game interviews, which have become common in other sports, are not the only expanded access this season.
“This year, new to the NFL, we’re going to be allowed to speak to a home team player in full uniform either at the end of warm-ups or just after run-outs,” Hyland said this week. “All network partners for the first time will have locker room access after the field clears, 20 seconds of video per team, and that’s new this year.”
NBC also will deliver the NFL's first game in Brazil when the Packers play the Eagles exclusively on Peacock on Sept. 6. Then, the network begins its Sunday Night Football slate two days later with the Rams visiting the Lions in a wild-card rematch.
“We got lucky this year," Collinsworth said of the opening weekend of games. “I guess it’s luck, whatever.”
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