After the Chiefs beat the Bengals in the AFC Championship Game, it was hard to miss people talking about the fact that Chiefs head coach Andy Reid would be facing his former team in the Super Bowl.
There was less notice paid to the fact that Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni also has a history with the Chiefs. Sirianni was the Chiefs wide receivers coach for the 2012 season and he was let go when Reid was hired in 2013 because Reid wanted to have David Culley in that spot.
Sirianni said Reid “was complimentary” when informing him that he was being let go and that Reid “gave me strength when I was down,” but he admitted that the memory of getting the pink slip is still something that he uses as motivation.
“Do you always have this little chip on your shoulder? Sure, yeah, you do,” Sirianni said, via Tim McManus of ESPN.com. “But that’s who I am as a coach and as a person — I want to make sure I’m working my butt off to get as good as I possibly can. And sure, you hold on to some of those things.”
Whatever Sirianni has used to light a fire for himself has paid off. He rose back up the ladder with the Chargers and the Colts before being hired by the Eagles in 2021 and he’s made it to the Super Bowl in his second season. If he’s able to beat Reid and the Chiefs on Sunday, that may be enough to retire the chip for good.
