The Kansas City Chiefs now have the longest-tenured head coach in the NFL. Andy Reid has been leading them for 13 seasons and 2025 was only the second time the three-time Super Bowl winner didn't lead them to the playoffs.
Only four more coaches have been in their current posts since before 2020: the Rams' Sean McVay, the 49ers' Kyle Shanahan, the Bengals' Zac Taylor and the Packers' Matt LaFleur.
But since 2022, 23 of the other 27 NFL franchises have changed coaches at least once. Everything reached a whole new level after '25, with the Ravens' John Harbaugh and the Steelers' Mike Tomlin creating two of the 10 more new coaching job openings. The latest was the Bills' Sean McDermott, coming off Buffalo's tough overtime divisional playoff loss at Denver.
What's a rough gig with little job security has gotten rougher. And the Chiefs and the Patriots are two of the teams to blame most for it. Kansas City not being in the playoffs with Reid has been a big factor. So has New England returning to the playoffs for the first time without Bill Belichick, on the brink of playing in yet another Super Bowl.
Here's breaking down how the Chiefs have caused much of this with the Patriots being supporting actors:
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Kansas City Chiefs' dominance ending led to higher expectations for contenders
The Chiefs aren't done contending for AFC titles and Super Bowls with Patrick Mahomes still playing for Andy Reid. But they took an overdue break from being a huge obstacle, keeping both the AFC's and NFC's other top teams from feeling that they could overcome their inevitability.
Before '25, the Chiefs played in four of the previous five Super Bowls, winning three, including a repeat. They turned back strong 49ers teams twice. They kept the Eagles from winning three times in a decade, too. Only the Bengals have broken through past the Chiefs in the post-Patriots dynastic era with Tom Brady and Bill Belichick.
With the Chiefs out of the way, it was supposed to be time for the Ravens, Bills or Steelers to have their elusive Super Bowl breakthrough. Instead, Baltimore didn't make the playoffs and move on from Harbaugh. Buffalo lost as a wild-card team on the road, ending things for McDermott. Tomlin realized that with his team's continued QB transition, the Steelers were far from an AFC title.
Houston is still a young team and is building something strong with DeMeco Ryans. But after some questionable coaching decisions and his team still not reaching an AFC title game, he's feeling a hot seat going into 2026.
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Jim Harbaugh has been safe from the Chargers' pressure so far, but it will build with a similar result next season. The Jaguars are rising with Liam Coen, while the Broncos and Patriots look like legitimate upstarts.
Owners around the league saw no Chiefs and Reid and Mahomes and saw the best opportunity to bring a ring to their franchise. But they also didn't account for new challengers and their teams still needing to execute in clutch moments of playoff games.
The Chiefs' presence with Mahomes and the futile playoff efforts of the other AFC teams came with a free pass for other contenders, one that flew out the window when the Chiefs fell hard. Everyone's still chasing Reid and Mahomes, even when no one is coaching or quarterbacking against them.
The Eagles were put together for one special, complete year to get the Chiefs when they were on the ropes. And it's not surprise it was McVay's Rams who took advantage the last time it was Chiefs-less Super Bowl. Reid has set an impossible standard to match and everyone is desperate for their own McVay.
New England Patriots turning around so fast led to unreasonable expectations for other teams
The Patriots getting to the Super Bowl again to fill the Chiefs' void will make a lot of non-New England fans groan. The Patriots, just seven seasons removed from the sixth ring together for Belichick and Tom Brady, are back in a familiar position, facing the Broncos in Denver in the AFC championship game, matching the feat from 10 years ago.
Between Brady going to the Buccaneers and winning a ring there in 2020 and seeing a fading Belichick looking for the right next starting QB, it looked like the Patriots would be stuck for a bit, especially after 2021 first-round QB Mac Jones showed an early limited ceiling.
But after seeing everything that went wrong with Belichick's initial successor, Jerod Mayo, in 2024, despite using a No. 3 overall draft pick to replace Jones with Drake Maye, there didn't seem to be an easy path to dig out of 4-13, in last place, nine games behind the five-peating Bills in the AFC East.
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Then came Mike Vrabel, bringing back a fresher Belichickian vibe with offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels in two. The defense came together, Maye transformed into an MVP-level passer, and poof, the Patriots were the ones going 13-4 and taking back the division title.
McDermott losing the division to Vrabel's Patriots, two games behind and settling for a top wild card was a jab. Then not being able to keep pushing as a sneaky AFC playoff favorite with no Reid's Chiefs? That was the knockout blow.
The Patriots and Jaguars improving by nine games and the Bears improving by six games is tied to the built-in parity system of the league, a more favorable schedule for "lesser" teams. The Commanders looked awesome going from 4-13 to 12-5 and getting to the NFC title game last year, but Dan Quinn had to fire his coordinators after they tumbled back down to 5-12 this past season.
NFL owners are unreasonable when it comes to winning results and most are impatient, despite the fact they still "win" when it comes to massive revenue every season. When all these on -field turnaround stories happen, including the Patriots, it's doom for the coaches of underachieving or downright bad teams such as the Giants, Raiders, Titans, Cardinals, Browns and Falcons.
The Reid Chiefs and the Vrabel Patriots are the two best current examples of how two coaching successes put undue pressure on other coaches to produce. Unfortunately, owners aren't ones to give too much grace, either.
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