With the Kansas City Chiefs’ offensive coordinator Matt Nagy set for a second round of interviews for the Tennessee Titans‘ head coach position, it’s about time Coach Andy Reid looks for a new subordinate. The Chiefs are already scouring the market for a potential replacement, and they have a familiar name in mind.

League sources indicate the Chiefs are internally evaluating offensive coordinator options, with Eric Bieniemy emerging as the early favorite. That doesn’t mean the search stops there, but his name is very much front and center. With the Chicago Bears not alive in the postseason anymore, the timing of any in-person interview remains fluid.

None of this is surprising. If Kansas City does have an opening, Bieniemy was always going to come up. This organization values familiarity, and few coaches know the building better. Bieniemy is currently Chicago’s running backs coach, a role he once held in Kansas City for five seasons from 2013 to 2017.

Back then, he worked closely with a Chiefs backfield that featured Jamaal Charles and, later, Kareem Hunt. His work earned him a promotion to offensive coordinator in 2018, a job he held through 2022. Those years coincided with the most successful stretch in franchise history, including the Super Bowl run that finally ended the Chiefs’ 50-year drought.

He was a core piece of Andy Reid’s staff. At the time, many expected that resume to land Bieniemy a head coaching job. It never happened. Instead, he moved on to an offensive coordinator role with the Washington Commanders. After one season there, he stepped away again, taking the offensive coordinator job at UCLA.

Just when it looked like the college game might be his next chapter, Bears head coach Ben Johnson reached out – not with an OC title, but with a running backs coach position. Not many former coordinators would take that step back, but Bieniemy did. He’s been in Chicago ever since.

And the results have shown up. The Bears finished third in the league in rushing at 144.5 yards per game. D’Andre Swift became a true centerpiece, piling up 1,087 rushing yards and nine touchdowns, just under 68 yards per game. That’s hard to ignore, especially for a Chiefs team that finished 25th in rushing.

If Kansas City does decide to bring Bieniemy back, it would be the right call. It fits exactly what quarterback Patrick Mahomes is looking for in his next coordinator.

Bieniemy is a perfect match for Mahomes

Even Patrick Mahomes couldn’t drag the Kansas City Chiefs out of the hole they dug this season. A year ago, Kansas City was automatic in tight one-score games, a perfect 12–0 when things came down to the wire. They went 1–9 in those same moments this year. And this disaster of a year ended with Mahomes tearing his ACL.

The rehab didn’t stop him, though, from thinking about what comes next. When asked what he wants in his next offensive coordinator, Mahomes broke down the perfect candidate.

“Just want someone that loves football, that cares about football, wants to give everything they can to win, to hold people accountable, and then to bring new ideas every single day,” Mahomes said.

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He added that it is imperative to evolve and get better to stay relevant in this league. If the Chiefs want to return to a winning culture that holds the players accountable every step of the way, they’d need to consistently improve.

Truthfully, nobody sticks around the NFL long without loving football. You don’t survive this grind if the game isn’t wired into you. That’s where Eric Bieniemy fits into the conversation. Taking step-back roles, adjusting paths, doing whatever it takes to keep coaching is exactly what love for the game looks like.

And beyond the scheme talk, what has always defined Bieniemy is accountability. Mahomes knows that better than anyone.

“EB means the world to me,” Mahomes said on The Ship with Darren Smith. “The way he holds me accountable, the way he makes me be great every single day, this man’s one of a kind.”

Any decision about the next offensive coordinator is going to run through the quarterback, whether it’s spoken out loud or not. And it’s hard to miss the tone here. It sounds an awful lot like a stamp of approval.

“I think Coach Bieniemy set that standard when he was here,” Mahomes said. And I think you could see those lingering effects of the other coaches who have coached underneath EB (Eric Bieniemy) and then coach Nagy. I mean, I coached with EB, been an offensive coordinator before, and QB coach last year, We hold each other accountable; the coaches hold us accountable.”

Nothing has moved forward yet. But if Nagy does leave, Eric Bieniemy looks like the one.