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What an opportune time for Eric Bieniemy to gyre equally a hot candidate while some other hiring cycle looms for a fresh batch of new NFL caput coaches.
Bieniemy, 51, coordinates the league'southward meridian-ranked offense. His fingerprints are all over superstars Patrick Mahomes, Tyreek Hill and Travis Kelce. The Kansas Chiefs, defending Super Basin champs, have the NFL's best record at 14-ane, longest winning streak at ten games, the No. 1 seed and home-field advantage in the AFC playoffs and the most alluring, must-see Television appeal due in large part to Mahomes, the amazing quarterback. In that location'south likewise Kansas City'south offensive inventiveness demonstrated repeatedly as the wow moments pile upwardly.
He's been groomed by Andy Reid, one of the best coaches of this generation. Bieniemy is widely respected in NFL circles, with a reputation every bit an innovator and hands-on leader to go with the results.
If anyone is deserving of a shot to take over a team, it would be Bieniemy, right?
If only it were every bit elementary as that.
Which NFL team is the all-time fit for Eric Bieniemy?
USA TODAY Sports' Jarrett Bong breaks down the potential head coaching options for Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy.
United states TODAY
"I'll just say this: Everyone who works in whatever organization or any chore, they want to be rewarded for the correct reasons," Bieniemy told United states of america TODAY Sports. "When somebody wants to rent me, that will be the best job that has constitute me and that will be the best job that I have institute. Because we connected. Then, when it comes to hiring, I can't control what goes on in the possessor'southward head. I can't force them to make the conclusion. My chore is to make sure that when I'm in there giving that interview, I'm existence my nearly authentic self. They become to see me, feel me for who I am and what I'm about.
"Just on top of that, if they don't see all the things that volition aid them abound equally an organization, that's okay. Because approximate what? I take an opportunity here to piece of work with a Hall of Fame caput charabanc, we've got some great people here who happen to be great football players and we've had a great bargain of success. I enjoy what I do."
That was Bieniemy's response when asked the inevitable question: Does he experience that being Black has prevented him from landing a caput coaching job?
Bieniemy wouldn't exactly become there.
Yet others will. During the past three hiring cycles, merely three minorities — Ron Rivera, Brian Flores and since-fired Steve Wilks — were hired among the twenty openings.
Richard Lapchick, who composes a yearly report card on racial and gender hiring in sport for The Institute for Diversity and Ideals in Sport (TIDES) at the Academy of Primal Florida, gave the NFL a grade of "D+" in 2020 for variety among its head coaches. NFL teams got an "F" for full general managers, who often choice the caput coaches. The grades were the same in 2019.
This leads to a potentially problematic situation for the NFL. Bieniemy is one of the nigh qualified head coaching candidates in recent NFL history. Imagine if he in one case again gets passed over.
That'due south why all eyes volition be on the league when teams plow their full attention to the head-coach market Monday after the final regular season games. Already nether pressure for the treatment of Black head coaching candidates in previous years, this will exist the first offseason since racial equality became part of the national dialogue this summertime.
It's too the first exam since Commissioner Roger Goodell, owners and other team officials pledged in July that there would be a more diverse NFL, and the league would fight systemic racism beyond the nation.
But can the NFL be such a leader, and command such a fight, when its own racial head coaching house is in such shambles?
Bieniemy interviewed for seven jobs over the by two cycles — the Bucs, Jets, Dolphins and Bengals in 2019; the Browns, Giants and Panthers in 2020 — and will be back in line in the coming weeks.
"The nigh frustrating part has been the reasons that teams come up with for why he wasn't hired," Brian Levy, Bieniemy's agent, told USA TODAY Sports. "Some of them are ridiculous."
Levy said he's been told that, for example, Bieniemy was passed over because he doesn't call plays. That didn't end others who worked nether Reid, including current coaches Matt Nagy (Bears) and Doug Pederson (Eagles) and onetime coach Brad Childress, from getting their shots. Nor did that stop the Bengals from hiring Zac Taylor from Sean McVay's staff with the Rams.
"All of a sudden, it's a problem," Levy said.
Likewise, Reid, who didn't telephone call plays as tight ends coach on Mike Holmgren'due south staff with the Packers during the 1990s, insists that he shares play-calling duties with Bieniemy.
"He calls plays, I call plays," Reid told U.s. TODAY Sports. "Or, 'What do you think hither?' 'Okay, get with information technology. Allow'southward roll.' That'south how we go. We cheque our egos at the door, all the way effectually. Nosotros're trying to win. I have that relationship where it doesn't thing who calls what. If y'all've got an idea and you're strong about it, allow'southward go with it."
It is Bieniemy'due south voice that Mahomes hears in his helmet when the plays are relayed from the sideline. Each week, Bieniemy memorizes the play-telephone call canvas and sometimes sending the play to Mahomes involves speedily translating what Reid is thinking as the play-clock ticks.
Explained Bieniemy: "He'll say, 'Due east.B., give me 34 Webster.' Well, the play might be '34 Webster Read Piece of cake.' So, I've got to call it. Here's the formation: 'It's Trips right. Bunch nasty. F left O. 34 Webster. Read easy.' But the thing is, it's a collaborative endeavour.
"He can end my sentences and I can finish his," Bieniemy said of Reid. "That's how tied to the hip that nosotros've become."
Levy said he'due south likewise been told that Bieniemy wasn't the selection because the team was looking for someone with previous head coaching experience.
"You don't ever go information technology, if y'all don't go it," said Levy, who has represented coaches for 19 years.
Now think of some of the NFL'southward best coaches. First with Super Bowl winners Sean Payton, Mike Tomlin and John Harbaugh. In that location'due south besides McVay who took the Rams to Super Basin LII. And don't forget Flores, who has quickly turned the Dolphins into a playoff contender. What do they all take in common? They landed their jobs without previous head-coaching experience.
Levy was likewise stunned by what he felt was a lack of due diligence by the three teams that interviewed Bieniemy during the near contempo bike.
"None of the teams called on whatsoever of his references last year," Levy said. "Middle-opening for me. I can't tell y'all who they were told to call, but they didn't phone call the top-of-the-nutrient-chain guy that they should have been calling."
It's unfair that Bieniemy'southward candidacy seemingly involves a layer — and some would call it a dominant layer — attached to race. It is likewise one of the burdens that aspiring minority coaches also often are forced to assume in a league where more than 70% of the players are Black. Certainly, condign a head coach isn't easy for white coaches, either. There are simply 32 of these jobs.
Nevertheless for decades Black coaches in the NFL have believed caput coaching opportunities are unequal due to a myriad of suspected reasons, including stereotypes, an old-male child network, nepotism and former-fashioned racial discrimination.
"All you lot desire is an opportunity," a quondam NFL assistant coach who is Black told USA TODAY Sports under the condition of anonymity. The former coach did not want to be identified due to the sensitive nature of the topic.
The former coach rose through the ranks to the level of coordinator and interviewed for multiple head coaching jobs. Simply he retired like many before and afterwards: frustrated at beingness passed over for white coaches with lesser qualifications.
And the ex-motorcoach was incensed earlier this yr when Broncos coach Vic Fangio, who is white, contended in the days post-obit the death of George Floyd that racism and discrimination doesn't exist in the NFL — a league with merely 2 Black general managers and one Blackness team president, Washington's Jason Wright, in its 101-year history.
Fangio, who served 32 years equally an NFL assistant before landing his starting time caput coaching job in 2019, apologized after receiving a torrent of criticism, including dismay from Blackness players and Black game officials.
"I was and so mad at him," the former banana coach said of Fangio. "You don't run across it? That's considering it doesn't happen to you. But it'south like gravity. It'south at that place. I can't see it, simply I know it keeps me on the ground."
Such perceptions, on top of the hiring results, accept kept the consequence on the front burner in the NFL, which currently has four minority non-interim head coaches. Goodell said in mid-December, following a virtual league meeting, that diversity and inclusion was discussed as has been during each meeting this year.
In 2003, the NFL instituted the Rooney Rule. Originally, it required every team to interview at least one person of color for head coaching vacancies. It was expanded in 2009 to include key front role positions. It had some success, helping lead to eight Black head coaches from 2011 to 2017.
The dominion has been expanded to mandate that teams interview at least two minority candidates for head coaching jobs, and one minority for coordinator, GM and other senior executive positions.
Since the mid-2010s, though, the Rooney Rule has had petty bear upon. Troy Vincent, the NFL's executive vice president of football operations, admitted to reporters last month that his league, and others, are declining in attempts to diversify front role and coaching ranks.
"The facts are the facts," said Vincent, who is Blackness. "None of the sports leagues are doing this well. When you lot look at the mobility of Black men and Black women in professional sports, so it's poor. And then what nosotros (have) to exercise is control what we tin control, and expect at and examine what we're doing. ... Nosotros accept done a thorough examination of what we're doing wrong, what doesn't work. But there's no best practices in sports. Allow's be straight. Allow'southward be honest. We tin go to every sport from basketball, hockey, baseball game, here. Diversity, we're non seeing what we all hope for. We're not seeing true inclusion."
In improver to the Rooney Dominion, the NFL adopted a resolution in November that incentivizes teams to develop minorities who advance. Teams that lose a fellow member of their staff who becomes a head omnibus volition receive third-round compensatory picks in the following ii drafts. Losing multiple staff members who become head coaches and GMs would net iii third-round picks.
"I call up every bit a group, there's a belief that we tin do better, we need to practice amend than where we've been the final few years," Steelers owner Art Rooney II, chairman of the league'south diversity committee, told USA TODAY Sports. "With all the changes we've been discussing, we really haven't had button dorsum."
The Rooney Rule was named for Art's late father, Dan, who chaired the diversity committee.
"How volition this impact the private clubs when they are making that hiring decision?" Rooney said, referring to policies adopted this twelvemonth. "Obviously, that's where the rubber meets the road."
In other words, nosotros'll see.
With three teams — the Falcons, Texans and Lions — finishing the electric current flavour with interim coaches, the upcoming hiring cycle is expected to exist robust. Later just iv teams switched coaches last offseason, Levy and others in league circles project there will be at least viii vacancies.
As usual, the NFL'due south in-house variety committee and the Fritz Pollard Alliance, a group that monitors and promotes minority hires, have formulated extensive lists that illustrate there is no shortage of minority candidates.
So again, such lists have existed for years.
In Bieniemy's example, his credentials should be enough, with or without a Rooney Dominion. With or without resolutions tied to incentives.
It should exist incentive plenty for, say, Houston to grasp whether Bieniemy can have star quarterback Deshaun Watson to a college level afterwards playing such a key role in Mahomes' development.
"Nobody is looking for a stimulus-response blazon of hire," Levy said. "Nosotros're not asking for any head starts or incentives. Only a off-white process."
Levy describes Bieniemy every bit a passionate, disciplined leader with strong messaging. When he talked up "CEO qualities" that would enable Bieniemy to connect with all players, regardless of positions, and various departments throughout an organization, it brought to mind the illustration used this yr when the Giants hired Joe Guess, a former special teams coach.
The profile for the ideal caput coach, though, is a moving target. Bill Belichick was a defensive whiz before expanding to become i of the greatest head coaches in league history. Yet a certain pattern has evolved. Over the by three cycles, 13 of the coaches hired had made their marks running offenses — as Bieniemy does.
No, that doesn't explain why the Lions dumped Jim Caldwell, who is Black and took Detroit to the playoffs in 3 of his four seasons at the helm, and in 2018 replaced him with recently fired Matt Patricia. Caldwell had an extensive runway tape on offense and in working with quarterbacks; Patricia, a defensive strategist, had a connection to since-fired GM Bob Quinn, forged while both worked for the Patriots under Belichick.
Still, in a laissez passer-happy league on the verge of setting the single-season scoring record, Bieniemy has what many of the recent head coach hires possessed.
"Once y'all work with the quarterback — he'south in that room every mean solar day with Patrick — you have the whole pic," said Reid, who promoted Bieniemy from running backs double-decker after Nagy left for Chicago in 2018. "You understand everything about offensive football game. Y'all teach it, your demands go upwardly in dealing with the whole grouping."
Mahomes, breaking records at a dizzying pace in his fourth flavour, can vouch for that. He has repeatedly touted Bieniemy'southward potential as a head coach, in function due to the standards that include perfection on "every unmarried rep" in practice.
"He does not allow me miss any particular of what the play is supposed to do, what the protection is supposed to be," Mahomes told reporters in 2018. "That helps me a ton. When I become to the game, everything is a little scrap easier."
When Reid became the Eagles double-decker in 1999, he brought Bieniemy in for the concluding season of his nine-year NFL playing career non just to exist a fill-in to running back Duce Staley and special teamer. Reid was trying to establish a civilization and wanted Bieniemy as a locker room influence.
Reid is now invested in Bieniemy'south next move. He is compelled to share insight, he said, into issues that banana coaches by and large are not involved in. It sounds like a caput coach finishing school.
"When you become a coordinator here, I want yous to move on and have that opportunity," Reid said.
Reid reflected on his years with the Packers, crediting Holmgren, offensive coordinator Sherman Lewis and Ron Wolf, the general manager, for grooming him.
As he mentioned Wolf trusting him with personnel evaluations, Reid quickly circled back to Bieniemy, who had a role in Kansas City's first-circular pick this year of star running dorsum Clyde Edwards-Helaire.
"Eric is i of the best evaluators we have every bit a coach," Reid said. "He knows what to expect for and when he gets information technology, he can bring out the best in it."
Count Hall of Famer Tony Dungy, the first Black coach to win a Super Basin, among those bullish on Bieniemy. Dungy says Bieniemy has the energy and passion to be a head coach, and has even made Reid a better passenger vehicle.
"I retrieve Eric has helped Andy evolve," Dungy told USA TODAY Sports. "There's no way, 5 years ago, they would have gone to Buffalo and run the brawl 46 times. That'south just non Andy's nature."
In Week 6, the Chiefs rushed for 245 yards and held the ball virtually 38 minutes during a 26-17 victory. Dungy recalls that the Bills sold out to defend the pass, prompting Kansas City, with Edwards-Helaire running for 161 yards, to pound on the footing.
"The fact that Eric was a running back, he values the running game," Dungy said. "I think he's helped Andy become a piddling more patient, probably made Patrick a fiddling more well-rounded. Information technology'south not just every minute for the large play. I recall (Mahomes has) learned that the short passing game and the running game can be but every bit effective."
Like Bieniemy, Dungy was once the rising assistant constantly mentioned as a potential head coach.
"Now you lot but have to piece of work through being patient," Dungy said. "Look on the correct opportunity. He couldn't be in a meliorate spot for that. I just hope it comes sooner rather than afterward. It should."
Bieniemy, who began playing football at 6-years-old while growing up in New Orleans, doesn't audio like a man consumed by the prospects of what could occur in 2021. He admits that from the moment he entered the coaching profession nearly 20 years ago, he envisioned condign a head coach. Notwithstanding that dream is deferred.
Sure, there was thwarting when he didn't move up during the by ii hiring cycles. Reid will tell you lot of Chiefs players upset that Bieniemy didn't state a head coaching job.
"When I wasn't hired, it was time to go dorsum to piece of work," Bieniemy said. "I don't have fourth dimension to feel sorry for myself."
It's likely that Bieniemy could have get a head coach earlier this year on the college level. When Mel Tucker left Colorado to take over at Michigan Country, Bieniemy was contacted by his alma mater but opted to continue pursuing his NFL career.
"When your quondam school reaches out, information technology's difficult not to mind to what they want to offering," Bieniemy said. "Did I consider it? It was overnice to listen to all the kind words. Information technology feels good to be wanted. Simply in reality, I feel that this is the place I need to be at this particular time."
That Colorado had Bieniemy on its short listing says much about his standing these days in Boulder, Colorado nearly three decades subsequently he was banned from the campus for a year following a 1993 incident in which he was accused of harassing a female parking lot bellboy. During his tardily teenage years and early 20s, Bieniemy was arrested several times in Colorado, the episodes including a bar fight that was ignited when he says he was called a racial slur, a DUI accuse and an commutation where he shoved a firefighter responding to an emergency at his mother'due south house.
Asked if he thinks the arrests have injure his candidacy for head-coaching jobs, Bieniemy said, "I don't think anything in my past is an result.
"I'll tell you what I believe: It helped me abound," he said. "It's helped me constitute relationships with guys that I motorbus, to show and talk to them nearly the difference between what's right and what's incorrect. It'due south helped shape me.
"All of that stuff that took place, information technology happened for a reason. And without the Academy of Colorado, we wouldn't be having this conversation correct now. That's where I started. I had some highs and lows there, simply I've had more than highs."
One-time Colorado coach Gary Barnett had no qualms about Bieniemy's character when he hired him as running backs coach in 2001, shortly afterwards Bieniemy had returned to complete classes to earn his undergraduate degree.
"When he came back, he had matured so much," Barnett told USA TODAY Sports. "He gained so much knowledge later on nine years in the league."
Barnett and Bieniemy accept remained close, with the former passenger vehicle quick to express pride in his onetime pupil's coaching journey, which besides included a second stint at Colorado as offensive coordinator before he joined Reid'due south staff in 2013.
Barnett also believes that Bieniemy possesses the most important characteristic needed to excel as a head coach: empathy.
That trait, too, has been emboldened past life experiences. The oldest of Eric and Mia Bieniemy's 2 sons, Eric III, has cerebral palsy.
Bieniemy was in his playing career when Eric 3, now 25, was born. "The starting time v years of his life, we lived in and out of a hospital," Bieniemy said.
"He's confined to a wheelchair, but he doesn't ask for any sympathy. Beautiful kid. He's the backbone of our family. He'southward the free energy that we feed off of. But what information technology likewise allows you is the sense to non accept some of the things that we as people take for granted because our son doesn't have blessings like others."
Head coaching candidates such equally Bieniemy straddle a fine line between present and future aspirations. Certainly, they must be prepared for the interview process, which includes devising details of how they would go on on a new chore and targeting members of their potential staffs. In that respect, the feel that Bieniemy gained over the past two years has been beneficial.
Yet he also realizes that spending too much free energy plotting a motion could be a major distraction on the current mission. The Chiefs can become the NFL's first echo champion in 16 years since the Patriots won Super Bowl XXXIX.
"Our focus is solely on what we do in-house," Bieniemy said. "My sole purpose is to make sure that nosotros're practiced to go. Let's make sure the game plan is correct. When it comes to all of that stuff (with the head coach market), that procedure volition take intendance of itself in time. Right at present, I've got and then much on my plate dealing with these guys and making sure we're focused.
"I'll tell you: It's a different dynamic due to the pandemic because y'all never know how people are coming into the edifice. You want to make sure that everybody's listen is in the right place."
Even the hottest coaching prospects can only appoint in so many interviews with potential suitors — especially while in the playoffs. Candidates from teams that play on wild card weekend tin can't have an initial interview until the following week, which could still exist a bit complicated if a coach is preparing for a divisional playoff game. Candidates whose teams accelerate to the Super Bowl, though, can engage in second interviews during the good day week after the conference title games.
Information technology's a foreign dynamic of the hiring bicycle: Prospects with the almost successful teams are at a disadvantage. They can't wing to the headquarters for lengthy initial interviews. Interested teams are put on hold, which could atomic number 82 to choosing another candidate. There's a musical chairs-type competition for coordinators and position coaches, who may accept other options beyond waiting out the decision on the caput bus.
Chalk upwardly the tight interview windows amid lessons learned. In 2019, Bieniemy interviewed with iv teams over a five-24-hour interval bridge but declined a asking to interview for the Arizona job that ultimately went to Kliff Kingsbury. Although he was crushed past the agenda — an interview with ane squad extended into the evening with an interview with some other team scheduled to brainstorm at eight the next morning — information technology'due south hit that he would accept turned down a asking. Kingsbury went on to country Kyler Murray with the No. 1 pick in the draft and in his 2nd season the Cardinals tin earn a playoff spot by beating the Rams on Sunday.
Levy defends the conclusion to non interview with the Cardinals, maintaining that they capped interviews at 4 teams.
"The teams that nosotros committed to were the get-go teams that called," said Levy. "At that point, nosotros couldn't do whatever more. Even terminal year, nosotros were like, 'We're just doing three.' He can't do more than that. Four was too many and v would have been absurd."
That could be interpreted as a bulletin for teams interested in Bieniemy. If, say, eight teams are in the market, there's no guarantee that he volition exist interested in interviewing with every team. Factors such every bit the existing quarterback (or programme to learn a quarterback), salary cap space and the chemistry with the GM amid the organizational power structure will be weighed in ranking teams.
The past two cycles, Bieniemy conducted his interviews in hotel suites or airplane hangars. Yet at that place will be a key deviation this fourth dimension around, at least from the onset. In accordance with the league's COVID-nineteen protocols, interviews can only be conducted virtually for candidates whose teams are in the playoffs.
And then much for a stiff handshake and reading body language. Candidates with the best video presence stand to gain an advantage.
"Y'all know what the cool affair is?" Levy said. "Eric gets to exercise his Zoom interviews with the Super Bowl bays in the background."
Source: https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/sports/nfl/columnist/bell/2020/12/30/eric-bieniemy-tries-beat-trend-lack-nfl-black-coaching-picks/4022532001/
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