Spotlight on Eric Bieniemy, potential NFL head coach in 2021?

By: Stephen Juza, Pro-football-history.com

As the league passes the halfway point in the season, many teams are looking toward the 2021 season. For some of these teams, this may include finding a new head coach to lead the team. Several teams have already fired their head coach, and several more could join them by the end of the season. One coach that will garner strong consideration will be Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy.

Bieniemy has interviewed for several head coaching positions over the last two seasons, and each season he has only strengthened his candidacy. Hailing from Andy Reid’s coaching tree, Bieniemy will likely be the next coach to branch out from Reid’s tutelage and bring Reid’s coaching tree to eleven coaches.

Not only is Reid’s the largest active coaching tree in the league now, it is also quite successful. This track record should bring hope to whichever team hires the next disciple of Reid. Compared with Bill Belichick, the next largest coaching tree, assistants coming from Reid’s have been far more successful than Belichick’s. Reid’s coaching tree has won two Super Bowls--Belichick’s tree has two playoff wins.

Bieniemy played college football for Colorado, earning All-America honors and finishing third for the Heisman Trophy after a standout senior season in 1990 where Colorado won the national championship. After college, Bieniemy played running back for nine seasons in the NFL during the 90s, his final season playing for Andy Reid in Philadelphia.

After his NFL career, he returned to college for several seasons to coach running backs for his alma mater and UCLA before returning to the NFL as a coach for the Minnesota Vikings in 2006. In 2011 he got his first coordinator position, returning to Colorado for two seasons.

He eventually joined the Chiefs as their running backs coach in 2013, Reid’s first season in Kansas City. After coaching the running bucks for five seasons, he was promoted to offensive coordinator after Matt Nagy left the team to become the new head coach of the Chicago Bears.

Since his promotion to offensive coordinator after the 2017 season, the Chiefs’ offense has been the class of the NFL. The Chiefs had the top ranked offense in 2018 behind quarterback Patrick Mahomes’ record-breaking MVP campaign. Building off of a successful 2018 season, the team won the Super Bowl in 2019 and are strong contenders to defend their championship title after a division-leading 7-1 start to the season.

Given the ever increasing importance of the quarterback position, Bienienmy’s next team will hope he can replicate his success of working with Mahomes. Whether it is working with a rookie quarterback such as Trevor Lawrence, the Clemson quarterback expected to enter the NFL draft at the end of his season, or a young quarterback who has shown promise like DeShaun Watson, Bieniemy’s success as a head coach will be tied to his quarterback’s ability to develop.

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