The Kansas City Chiefs are about to look very different in 2026 as their head coach, Andy Reid, is clearly not done shaking things up. After wrapping up a disappointing 6-11 season, Reid is continuing his offseason reset by making yet another staff change. Reid already moved on from offensive coordinator Matt Nagy, running backs coach Todd Pinkston, wide receivers coach Connor Embree, and assistant running backs coach Mark DeLeone. Now, Reid has added another name from the Chiefs’ offensive room to that list.

“Two more departures from Chiefs coaching staff: Mark Deleone, assistant RBs coach last year, and Kevin Saxton, an offensive assistant,” Chiefs’ columnist Sam McDowell reported on January 20 via X.

While DeLeone had already been let go on January 19, Kevin Saxton II now appears to be Andy Reid’s fifth firing as he tries to clean house and fix what went wrong. Saxton had joined the Chiefs in 2023 after working at Benedict College as co-offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. While Saxton came into Kansas City as a part of a major offensive staff overhaul in the 2023 offseason, he eventually became one of Andy Reid’s most trusted aides. 

“I do a lot of everything, I’m the coach’s [Andy Reid] right-hand man, so anything that he needs, I’m there to assist him, to help him,” Kevin Saxton had said in an interview back in 2024. “It may be on the financial side, it may be on the head coaching side, on the field things, just kind of depends on where he may need some assistance.”

The Chiefs did have success during Kevin Saxton’s time on the staff. The Chiefs qualified for the playoffs twice and went 6-1 in those postseason games under Saxton. In 2023, Kansas City beat the San Francisco 49ers 25–22 in Super Bowl LVIII. A year later, however, the Chiefs lost 40–22 to the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl LIX. Then in 2025, Kansas City failed to make the playoffs for the first time since 2014. 

With Saxton on the coaching staff in 2025, the Chiefs’ offense finished ranked 20th in the league with 320.6 yards per game. The Chiefs’ run game also took a noticeable step back, averaging just 106.6 rushing yards per contest, which ranked 25th in the NFL. Even before Chiefs’ star quarterback Patrick Mahomes suffered a season-ending injury, the team’s offense struggled down the stretch. 

Over the last three seasons with Kevin Saxton, the Chiefs averaged 348.3 net yards per game, which ranked 18th in the league. At the same time, neither Matt Nagy nor Saxton was truly the offensive mastermind in Kansas City. Andy Reid has always called the plays and remained heavily involved in building the offensive scheme in Kansas City. So, Reid clearly decided that new voices and new ideas with him could breathe life back into a Chiefs’ offense that was struggling for most of last season.

Andy Reid made two important decisions for the offense 

While the Chiefs sit out the 2025 postseason, they are already undergoing a complete rebuild. But Andy Reid hasn’t only been showing the door to his coaching assistants. He has also brought in two familiar faces in Kansas City to jumpstart the rebuild.

NFL insider Jordan Schultz reported on January 19 that the Chiefs are hiring Eric Bieniemy as offensive coordinator. At the same time, wide receivers coach Chad O’Shea was also reportedly joining the Chiefs. Bieniemy currently works as the running backs coach for the Chicago Bears, but in Kansas City, he’s anything but a stranger. He served as the Chiefs’ OC from 2018 to 2022, a stretch in which the team’s offense never finished lower than sixth in points per game and won two Super Bowls. 

After leaving Kansas City, Bieniemy then took the OC job with the Washington Commanders and spent a year calling plays at UCLA before joining the Bears. With Bienemy, the Bears then found real balance in their run game this past season, piling up 144.5 yards per game, third best in the league. Now Bieniemy returns to Kansas City as the OC, which feels like a hiring from Andy Reid that just makes sense.

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At the same time, the Chiefs have filled their wide receivers coach vacancy by hiring Chad O’Shea. According to NFL insider Tom Pelissero, O’Shea departs the Cleveland Browns after six seasons. O’Shea’s NFL journey actually started in Kansas City back in 2003 as a volunteer assistant before he quickly moved into an assistant special teams role. After that, he bounced around the league and eventually landed in Cleveland in 2020.

In O’Shea’s first season with the Browns, the offense looked rejuvenated and finished with 408 points. Still, the passing game during O’Shea’s tenure never ranked higher than 19th, although Cleveland’s revolving door at QB clearly didn’t help. The Browns’ receiving group also never took a massive leap forward under O’Shea’s watch. The Browns’ top wideouts over the past six years were Amari Cooper, who posted back-to-back 1,000-yard seasons in 2022 and 2023, and Jerry Jeudy, who recorded 1,229 yards in the 2024 season. 

Now, O’Shea steps into a very different situation in Kansas City to work alongside Andy Reid and Bieniemy. They will have to rebuild a Chiefs’ receiver room that currently features Rashee Rice and Xavier Worthy as the only clear long-term building blocks. But with Patrick Mahomes leading the offense next season and more structure around him, O’Shea might finally get the offense he needs to produce better results.