Andy Reid taught Brett Favre great trick for reading defenses

Andy Reid has a history of working with some of the best quarterbacks to ever play in the NFL, and that is not a coincidence. The veteran coach is an offensive mastermind in many ways, but he also has some outstanding hacks to share after serving in a coaching capacity for nearly four decades. Just ask Brett Favre.

During a recent appearance on Peter King’s podcast, Favre revealed some of the best advice Reid ever gave him when the two were with the Green Bay Packers. He said early on in his career the coach told him he could teach him something in five minutes that Favre probably could not get from hours of watching film. The advice was to find the player on the opposing defense who would be giving away plays by doing everything exactly by the book.

"One guy will usually tip off…what everyone's doing."@brettfavre shared the lessons he learned from Andy Reid in an exclusive @peter_king Podcast interview pic.twitter.com/z4c1GvcWXr

— SNF on NBC (@SNFonNBC) October 10, 2019

One example Favre gave was when he discovered former Tampa Bay Buccaneers nose tackle Brad Culpepper was tipping plays. He said he could tell whether a Blitz was coming based on the way Culpepper was leaning.

“Brad Culpepper was the nose tackle…they were young and still pretty much doing what they were coached, those were the ones you could pick up on,” Favre said, according to Alex Crawford of Acme Packing Co. “Andy said when Culpepper is tilted they are are running strong dog.”

The idea wasn’t that the opponents Reid and Favre cued in on were doing something wrong, it’s that they were doing every single thing the coaches told them to do. Rather than working to disguise a play and risk being out of position, younger players have a tendency to focus on playing the exact way they were coached.

It’s unclear if Favre passed that advice along to Aaron Rodgers, but it would stand to reason that Reid has shared it with Patrick Mahomes, who has already accomplished some things Favre never did. Reid has made plenty of mistakes in big games, but few coaches in the NFL are better at getting production out of their quarterbacks.