JANUARY 29: Like the Titans, the Commanders and Ravens have formally requested OC interviews with Bieniemy, per ESPN’s Adam Schefter and NFL.com’s Ian Rapoport (Twitter links). John Keim of ESPN.com adds (via Twitter) that Washington will continue to be patient and will wait until it is allowed to interview Bieniemy and 49ers assistant head coach/running backs coach Anthony Lynn, whose teams are playing in the championship games for their respective conferences today.
JANUARY 26: A key talking point each January, Eric Bieniemy‘s head coaching candidacy has tapered off in recent years. Despite Matt Nagy and Doug Pederson landing HC jobs from Andy Reid‘s Chiefs staff, Bieniemy has been stuck at the coordinator level. Only one team — the Colts — has interviewed him for its HC post this year.
Others remain interested in the five-year Chiefs OC. The Commanders and Ravens are the latest rumored to want an OC meeting with Bieniemy, Aaron Wilson of KPRC tweets. The Indianapolis HC path remains in play for Bieniemy, but similar avenues have repeatedly closed for the longtime Reid lieutenant over the past several years.
The Commanders and Ravens jobs are not classified as lateral moves, since each position would come with full play-calling responsibilities. Thus, the Chiefs cannot block Bieniemy from an interview. Reid has been Kansas City’s primary play-caller throughout his 10-year Missouri stay, and the top-tier HC receives the bulk of the credit for Patrick Mahomes submitting arguably the greatest early-career resume in quarterback history. Bieniemy has been Kansas City’s OC throughout Mahomes’ run as the team’s starter, but after extensive interest emerged early during his time in this job, the league has cooled on him.
Bieniemy, 53, signed an extension with the Chiefs last year and has not been closely connected to other OC jobs prior to this month. It would be bring somewhat of a risk to leave the Reid-Mahomes infrastructure the Chiefs provide, but Bieniemy having success as a play-caller could also finally break down the door to a top job. Ex-Chiefs QBs coach Mike Kafka is now on the HC radar, after becoming the Giants’ play-caller. Mahomes is ticketed to win a second MVP award and has powered the Chiefs to a fifth straight AFC championship game, doing so this time without Tyreek Hill.
Washington has seen multiple options — Jim Caldwell and Darrell Bevell — turn down the chance to interview. Ron Rivera‘s hot-seat status also complicates this season, since the OC role has a greater chance of being a one-and-done here than it does in most places. Many around the league expect, for this reason, the Commanders to promote quarterbacks coach Ken Zampese to replace Scott Turner, Albert Breer of SI.com tweets. Baltimore has also begun its interviews to replace Greg Roman. While Bieniemy, Frank Reich and Byron Leftwich have been linked to the position, none has been confirmed as an interviewee just yet.
Why would Bieniemy want to take a lateral unless it’s a definite HC in waiting or he has issues in KC?
Ability to call plays and pad his resume
It’s not a lateral move it’s a promotion since he would call plays where is KC, Andy Reid calls the plays
Because he only has the title of OC in KC. Reid calls most of the plays would be my guess. If Bieniemy wants to be a HC somewhere then he needs to become some teams official OC and not just a figurehead like he is now.
It’s why Nagy failed so miserably as the Bears head man. He cut himself loose of Reid’s mind and failed. It’s why Hackett failed in Denver. LaFluer calls the plays in Green Bay.
An OC who doesn’t call plays is still OC. Sirianni didn’t call plays in Indy and Reich didn’t in Philly.
But they weren’t working with Mahomes as a QB. Each boosted the players they were working with, while Reid gets all the credit in KC. He needs a greater body of work to overcome the negatives in his past…
Still, He’d be an idiot to leave a place where he has Patrick Mahommes to coach that Hodge Podge he would have in Washington. That isn’t even a lateral move. That’s going from the penthouse to the outhouse.
I guess you can’t read…
I’m guessing if he wrote a comment, he can read
If he is serious about getting a HC job, this is probably what he needs to do. If someone was going to hire him from KC OC (w/o play-calling duties) to HC it would have happened by now I’d think.
Big risk for him though. He has a very good thing going in KC with Reid and Mahomes to work with. Interested to see what he does.
Question — with the title being lateral, but the responsibilities clearly being a promotion, can KC block this?
Good question but I think the answer is yes, they could. Of course in this case I don’t think Reid would as he and Bieniemy see this as the best chance to lead Eric toward an eventual head coaching gig, maybe unless it w another AFC West team… but I’m just guessing.
One thing that hasn’t been brought up that I know of… I suppose that the possibility of Bieniemy succeeding Reid in KC has to have been at least considered if not talked about. Reid is 64 and has had health issues if I remember right; Bieniemy 53. So I can understand if Bieniemy simply doesn’t want to wait around for a chance that may never happen. It’s just that usually when a coordinator gets this much head coaching talk and his boss is older, the succession possibility is at least mentioned. Maybe my conjecture is a whole lot of nothing; maybe Reid wants to coach until he’s 80; or maybe KC doesn’t see Bieniemy as their best next option.
The article states why they can’t block it.
Thanks! I either blatantly missed that line or it was added after the fact.
I think it’s high time we put this whole Eric Bienemy issue to rest and make him a head coach. He’ll likely drain like the other 90% of the people they promote into that position, but at least we won’t be subject to yet another article about interviewing the guy.
It would be interesting to know who is the all-time leader in articles on Pro Football Rumors (Aaron Rodgers?), but this guy is likely right up there.
I think we should have a team hire Bieniemy as head coach, and then have that team add Rodgers to play QB. That way we keep all of the articles about him emanating from only one market.
Washington should have fired Rivera. I can’t understand why he’s still HC.
This guy should get a shot unless he’s a smoke show. Man has done well with a great team for a while
With all those “wanted” posters Bieniemy has collected he should probably be featured in a spaghetti western.