This is the online version of our daily newsletter, The Morning Win. Subscribe to get irreverent and incisive sports stories, delivered to your mailbox every morning. Here’s Charles Curtis.
How many years has it been that we’ve been saying Kansas City Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy should be a head coach in the NFL?
How about four? FOUR years in which, every year, we wonder when the OC who has helped the Chiefs win two Super Bowls in three appearances will get a gig to helm a team. And in all four of those years, he’s been passed over.
“EB still no job is crazy to me, another great coach slept on,” tweeted former Chiefs wideout Tyreek Hill.
I couldn’t agree more.
The “why” here is mystifying and infuriating. There was that awful narrative back in 2020 that he was terrible at interviews with franchises, which was almost immediately debunked by multiple people.
If the argument is concern over who the great offensive mind is for the Chiefs — is it Bieniemy or Andy Reid? — that’s dumb too. Because we’ve seen so many teams hire off Bill Belichick’s coaching staff (and we’ve seen how that’s mostly turned out awful).
Plus, Reid’s had coordinators hired from under him like Matt Nagy and Doug Pederson. And as ESPN’s Tony Reali pointed out, Bieniemy’s resume is actually STRONGER:
Reid’s two OC’s before Bieniemy – Matt Nagy, Doug Pederson- were both hired straight to HC. One was a coach of the Year, the other won a Super Bowl.
But Reid won none of his Super Bowls with those. https://t.co/ENmft6NQLd
— Tony Reali (@TonyReali) February 15, 2023
In an era in which the number of Black head coaches is so alarmingly low — there are three at the moment in Todd Bowles, Mike Tomlin and the newly-hired DeMeco Ryans — it’s woeful that Bieniemy hasn’t been given a shot for this long.
I’ve read some writers who wonder if Bieniemy — a free agent this offseason — goes elsewhere and shows it’s not all just Reid, he might get a head coaching job. But it shouldn’t take that. At all.
Instead, we’re left to wonder if the color of his skin is the reason. On that note, read what USA TODAY Sports’ Mike Freeman wrote about this:
I can’t stress enough how unusual it is for someone with Bieniemy’s background to not get a head coaching job. There are few precedents, and, unfortunately, many of those are also Black men. Not all, but most. Brilliant men like Jimmy Raye II who didn’t get that head coaching shot he deserved. The same with Sherman Lewis, offensive coordinator for the Packers in the 1990s, among other teams, who was passed over the same way Bieniemy is now.
Shame on you, NFL franchises. Do better.
Quick hits: JuJu Smith-Schuster trash talk … Mic’d up Super Bowl moments … new MLB bases … and more.
— JuJu Smith-Schuster ignited so much Twitter ire when he tweeted a Valentine’s Day card that ripped on James Bradberry. A.J. Brown responded by calling him “Tik-Tok boy,” and now C.J. Gardner-Johnson got in on it. Whew.
— Check out this Patrick Mahomes mic’d up moment from when he hurt his ankle in the Super Bowl. There’s also this tearful Jason Kelce moment with his mom after the Eagles lost.
— Did you know the MLB bases are bigger this year? You can see photos of the bigger versions now that spring training has begun.