Steve Mariucci details intimate first encounter with Chiefs' Andy Reid

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NFL Network analyst and former 49ers head coach Steve Mariucci has a lengthy track record in the league, spending four seasons as a quarterback coach with the Green Bay Packers and three seasons as the Detroit Lions’ head coach in addition to his six years in San Francisco.

Also with Mariucci on the Green Bay coaching staff for three of those years was current Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid.

Now that Reid is set to coach his second Super Bowl on Sunday against Kyle Shanahan and the 49ers, Mariucci details the first time he and Reid met after a fire alarm went off at a Wisconsin hotel.

“After that thing kept buzzing,” Mariucci told NBC Sports Bay Area while on Radio Row at Super Bowl LIV in Miami. “I open the door, and I stuck my head out the door and I wanted to see if there was smoke, I wanted to see if there were people running for their lives.

“And here’s this big, red hand came out of a door about three doors down, and I went ‘Reid?’ And he goes ‘Mariucci?’ I go ‘Yeah!’ Well we met in the hallway, in our underwear, with the fire alarm going off, in the Midway Motor Lodge. And it’s been really tight ever since.”

Talk about an intimate first encounter.

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While he’s got a chummy relationship with Reid, Mariucci did say that he’s “excited the 49ers are back.”

Either way, Mariucci will have a personal connection to whichever team winds up victorious, although I doubt he’ll be celebrating with his old co-worker in the same attire as their first encounter.

Programming note: NBC Sports Bay Area feeds your hunger for 49ers Super Bowl coverage with special editions of “49ers Central” all week (9:30 p.m. Friday, and 3 p.m. Saturday).

Also tune in at 1 p.m. on Super Bowl Sunday for a two-hour special of "49ers Pregame Live" with Laura Britt, Donte Whitner, Jeff Garcia, Ian Williams, Kelli Johnson, Greg Papa and Grant Liffmann. That same crew will have all the postgame reaction on "49ers Postgame Live," starting immediately after the game.

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