Before the Kansas City Chiefs address complicated roster decisions with the smallest cap space in the league, Andy Reid wants to make sure he’s got his assistant staff in order, as he continues to carry out one of the biggest coaching shufflings in the league. The Chiefs HC has made yet another hiring decision.

“The Chiefs are hiring former NFL RB and current Oklahoma RBs coach DeMarco Murray as their RBs coach on Andy Reid’s staff,” insider Jordan Shultz wrote.

It’s an interesting decision, considering the fact that it hasn’t been too long since Murray announced his retirement from playing football. Back in 2011, the Cowboys selected him in the third round, where he put up two 1000+ yard seasons in four years with the team as a running back.

He later signed a four-year, $25.5 million deal with the Titans, but Tennessee released him in 2018, right before the third year of that contract, to clear $6.5 million in cap space. Murray announced his retirement later that same year.

After a brief stop in broadcasting, he moved into coaching in 2019, starting in Arizona before landing at the University of Oklahoma in 2020 as the RBs coach, and has been there ever since. Also, this marks the third straight offseason that Murray’s name has surfaced in connection with high-profile openings.

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Two years ago, he was reportedly a serious candidate at Ohio State University, which was prepared to make him the highest-paid assistant in the country, and this past offseason, he was linked to positions at Penn State University and even back to Dallas, neither of which materialized.

His move to the Chiefs looks like a sure thing now, and this should be a good decision. The RBs coach was able to get the best out of his backs, racking up 219.4 rushing yards per game in 2022, the best mark in the league, and the next year the offense averaged 41.7 points, the highest among the top 12, while generating 507 total yards.

This past season, the group averaged 3.5 yards per carry and accounted for 18 rushing touchdowns, three more than Kansas City’s 15 scores. By all means, they needed to make this decision after losing out on Duce Staley.

Chiefs miss out on Duce Staley

For a while, many Kansas City Chiefs fans had their eyes on Duce Staley as a logical addition to Andy Reid’s staff, but it was reported that the Browns plan to retain Staley, who is their RBs coach. Chiefs responded well by hiring DeMarco Murray, but Staley seemed to be their priority at the time.

Kansas City has been deliberate with its hires so far, most notably bringing back Eric Bieniemy as OC, and Staley would’ve fit that same mold if it weren’t for the Browns bringing him back. Over the course of his career, he has been with the Eagles as running backs coach and assistant head coach, along with stops in Detroit and Carolina in similar roles.

The need for that kind of presence was obvious this past season, because the ground game never got going under Reid and then-offensive coordinator Matt Nagy. Kareem Hunt was expected to anchor the backfield and threaten the 1,000-yard mark, instead, he finished with 611 rushing yards and 8 scores, rarely making things difficult for run defenses.

As a team, Kansas City ranked 25th in rushing, averaging just 106.6 yards per game, which is rather unusual for Andy Reid’s offenses. Luckily, RBs like Breece Hall, Javonte Williams, Rico Dowdle, and Kenneth Walker III are all projected to reach free agency, and pairing one of them with DeMarco Murray could be pretty exciting.