It's long been said that Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid is a pretty smart guy, and on Friday afternoon at the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis, NFL Network's Daniel Jeremiah shared a story that proves that to be true once again.
Jeremiah is a former NFL personnel guy who worked for three different teams over a 10-year period, including eight years as an area scout, and three of those years were with Reid in Philadelphia (2010-2012). He left the Eagles in May of 2012 and joined NFL Network, where he's now one of the top draft analysts out there.
The story Jeremiah shared centers around the Eagles attempting to sign an undrafted free agent running back following the 2012 NFL draft.
"After the draft, we're on the phone recruiting undrafted free agents to try and come on board," Jeremiah explained. "So, we had a running back from the University of Washington in Chris Polk, who we liked as a draftable player.
"[Polk] doesn't get picked, so I'm calling this kid on the phone and trying to get him committed to come in here as a free agent, and we're not going to pay him much money, but we like him."
Polk had rushed for more than 4,000 yards with 26 touchdowns in his four years at Washington.
"I can't get it done," Jeremiah explained, "So I go to our running back's coach's office, Duce Staley, and I said, 'Duce, you got to help me out here, man. We've got to get this done.'
"Duce gets on the phone and he's trying to convince this kid to sign with us, but can't get it done (either). So [Staley] looks at me and says, 'Walk with me,' and we go down to coach Reid's office and tell him, 'Hey, we've got Chris Polk on the line here and we're trying to get him as a free agent.
"We hand [Reid] the phone and he [says to Polk], 'Let me talk to your mother.'
"That's the first thing that he said because coach is smarter than we are, so he got the kid's mom on the phone and convinced mom to get the kid, and once we got mom on board, it was done. We got him."
Polk, who has played in 44 career games and scored eight touchdowns, spent three years with the Eagles before moving on to the Houston Texans in 2015.
But the moral of this story is, when he has to close the deal, Reid knows who to talk to.
