In every way that current Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid maintains a calm, confident demeanor through all facets of the game of football, Haley was his antithesis.

Today’s younger Chiefs fans who only know Reid as organizational leader are so used to Reid’s assured stature on the sidelines that it would likely be jarring to see someone so mercurial as Haley coaching the red and gold. But just as up and (mostly) down as those years were for the Chiefs before Reid’s arrival, Haley was the poster child for such turmoil himself.

Haley’s leadership style was off-putting to many, but he deserves some credit when it works. He benched Derrick Johnson in a head-on challenge, and the franchise legend rebounded the following season by taking his game to a new level for the duration of his career.

That said, Haley was also… well, he was out there at times. It didn’t help that the roster had serious talent deficiencies at key spots, and Scott Pioli’s leadership style was even crazier than Haley’s. Together, the pair pushed the Chiefs to a rock-bottom position, which forced team owner Clark Hunt to completely recalibrate the team’s culture and leadership structure.

Recently, former Chiefs quarterback Matt Cassel, who was the primary signal caller during Haley’s stint as head coach, recalled an incredibly strained moment with his head coach. On the podcast Lots to Say with host Bobby Bones, Cassel detailed a moment when he defied his head coach’s attempts to lose the AFC West title and took matters into his own hands.

“I’m coming off the sideline, and we get into a little verbal altercation. I said some things that I probably shouldn’t have said. Deservedly so. He was hot. And I was like, ‘Todd, that’s not what we need right now. We don’t need you coming over here.’ Ah, and he goes, ‘F.U. Cassel, you’re benched.’

“So he won’t talk to me, and he says I’m out of the game. Well, I’m like, I’m a team captain. We’re in the third quarter. We’re up by 10. This is to win the AFC West. I was like… I did something I shouldn’t have done. I ran back out on the field. I did, and they won’t give me a play in my helmet.

“So I call my own play. So then they send Brodie [Croyle] out on the field on the second play. I walk off the sideline. I’m like, ‘What are we doing right now,’ right? I’m hot. Like, back then, my testosterone levels were way higher than what it is right now.

“Quarter switches, Brodie goes back out. First third down, throws a ball, gets tipped. Interception. Now the linemen, everybody, are coming off the sideline screaming. So I’m like, ‘Are we done messing around?’ And he says I’m still out.

“Next series comes up. They punt to us. I run back out on the field. They won’t give me plays again. So now I call my first three plays. We get a first down, and all of a sudden it’s, ‘All right, Cassel, let’s get into zero on, Sprint 38, alert sprint 30… I was like, ‘Really, now?’

“So I finish the game. We win the AFC West on that day. But it was a fractured relationship. Obviously, people are hot.

“I go in on a Tuesday because I called him on a Monday to try to clear the air. He got after me in that meeting. And I said, ‘Look, I understand your position. At the end of the day, I am your captain. And you can take the money. I’ll apologize to you, whatever you want to do. But we need to put this to bed because we’re about to go to playoffs in two weeks.’ That was probably my most intense conversation with the head coach.”

Such dramatic stories are a lot of fun to hear in the aftermath of things, but Chiefs Kingdom is undoubtedly grateful to have moved on from the Haley-Pioli era. It’s hard to imagine Patrick Mahomes will have this sort of tale to tell when all is said and done.