The Kansas City Chiefs re-hired Eric Bieniemy to come back as their OC, and that move is starting to make more sense.
Kansas City Chiefs coach Andy Reid doesn’t usually offer much of substance in his comments, but he’s enthusiastic about the re-hire of former offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy to man his old post again, and this move is starting to make a lot more sense.
“Yeah, I’m fired up to have him back,” Reid said in a piece written by Myles Simmons of Pro Football Talk based on Reid’s comments at the NFL spring meetings in Arizona this week. “When you lose a Matt Nagy, to bring a guy in who can just step in and go — that’s not an easy thing to do. So, I’m fired up to have him back. He brings great energy. Loves doing what he’s doing. All he wants to do is win football games and have a great offense. Ultimate team guy.”
This move seemed a little sketchy at first, given that it looked like Reid was simply looking to get the band back together when things didn’t work out with Nagy as his offensive coordinator. The initial thought was that Bieniemy was brought back merely to restore order on the Chiefs offense, which suffered from untimely penalties, bad drops by the receivers and some general bad football.
But the addition of Kenneth Walker III casts things in a somewhat different light. The Chiefs want to run between the tackles with Walker to protect quarterback Patrick Mahomes as he rehabs from his knee injury, and that could be Bieniemy’s forte.
Bieniemy’s coaching journey plays into this as well. He was Kansas City’s offensive coordinator from 2018-2022, but he’s bounced around in some lesser jobs since then, working with the Washington Commanders, UCLA and the Chicago Bears, and his last stint with the Bears was as a running backs coach.
“Yeah, listen, anytime you leave and go different places, you’re going to kind of sort through some things and then learn some things,” Reid said.
Another intriguing element of this signing is about the addition of Justin Fields as a backup quarterback who could end up as the Week 1 starter if Mahomes can’t beat his projected rehab timeline and open the season under center.
Fields has been an outstanding runner throughout his brief career, and even though he’s a quarterback he’s usually one of the best athletes on the field. Bieniemy could help unlock some of Fields’ potential in whatever version of the offense Reid decides to go with when he uses Fields, so there’s some potential there, too.