Kansas City Chiefs coach Andy Reid stood in the elevator landing on the ninth floor of the famous Riverside Church in New York City with a twinkle in his eye.

He’d agreed to spend a couple of minutes speaking about his faith with the Deseret News, but when I reminded him that the first time we met was at the funeral of LaVell Edwards, his Hall of Fame college coach at BYU, we talked football first.

Edwards used to call Reid every week during the NFL season. Reid laughed with me about how Edwards wanted to go over the game plan with his protegé and support the biggest branch on his coaching tree.

Reid said he knew Edwards would love that the Chiefs had won back-to-back Super Bowls.

Then the twinkle appeared. The fact of the possibility of the first Super Bowl three-peat in history arose. Reid’s mustache twitched up into a mischievous smile on both sides of his mouth, the way it does in some of the commercials he makes.

He believed he had the team to get back to the Super Bowl for a third straight time, but it would take months of work and another long, tremendous season. He didn’t want to jinx it or give putting a bigger target — as if that were possible — on his team’s backs, so I just reported that the concept of making history “energized Reid.”

It was palpable.

And now, here we are.

After 19 games, the Chiefs, Reid, Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce are 17-2 and will face the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl LIX this weekend. They are just 60 minutes from a singular feat.

Reid has reached six Super Bowls. A win Sunday would make four championships and a historic three in a row. The only losses would have been to ... Tom Brady.

Reid has been open about his faith, with the Deseret News and with all the media this week leading up to the game.

On Monday, a reporter asked him to name his favorite trilogy of books. “How about the Bible, The Book of Mormon, Pearl of Great Price. I like

'em all,” Reid said with a big smile.

That reminded me that:

1) He used an apostle’s general conference talk to address his team after the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001.

 

2) In that same New York church, he revealed that he created “The Formula” that adorns the walls of the Chiefs practice facility with what he considers would be Jesus Christ’s primary characteristics if he were a football player:

• Eliminate distractions
• Create energy
• Fear nothing
• Attack everything

3) Last year following a second straight Super Bowl victory, Reid went on the LDS Living’s “All In” podcast to talk about his faith and said, “What a great example (Christ) was for us, all the trials and tribulations that he went through, (and) Joseph Smith, the trials and tribulations that he went through. These are great examples for us.”