When it comes to Eric Bieniemy, LeSean McCoy doesn’t see it.
McCoy, a former running back who spent a dozen years in the NFL, including the 2019 season with the Chiefs under Bienemy, thinks his former offensive coordinator’s abilities are overblown. Bieniemy, who has never been a head coach but whose name regularly pops up whenever there is a an opening, spent the last five years as Kansas City’s offensive coordinator before taking the same job with the Commanders last week.
“I’ve been in the rooms where he’s coaching,” McCoy said on Monday’s edition of “Speak for Yourself” on Fox Sports. “He has nothing to do with the pass game at all. When the plays are designed, that’s Andy Reid. When you talk about offensive coordinators, I could tell you what makes Brian Daboll with the Giants a very, very good coordinator … but when I ask about Eric Bieniemy, what makes him good?”
Former Chiefs running back Jamaal Charles had an answer, responding to the segment on Twitter. Charles starred in the Chiefs backfield from 2008-16, with Bieniemy as the running backs coach for half that stretch.
“I have to disagree with you Shady,” Charles, 36, wrote. “Bieniemy Coach me 4 years I learned so many thing for EB and I still keep in contact with him a great husband and father. He deserves to be a head coach.”
Bieniemy, 53, took over as the Chiefs’ offensive coordinator in 2018 and coached one of the league’s most prolific offenses — Kansas City led the NFL in yards per game in 2018, 2020 and 2022; and this past season was first in passing yards per game (297.8), points per game (29.2) and first downs (408).
The Chiefs have also played in each of the last five AFC Championship games and reached the Super Bowl three times in that span, winning two of them, including this year.
Still, McCoy, while wishing Bieniemy well and saying he hopes he lands a head coaching gig, thinks that success had more to do with quarterback Patrick Mahomes and head coach Andy Reid.
“He doesn’t talk in meetings,” McCoy said, noting that when it comes to mistakes the offense makes in practice it’s Reid who corrects players, not Bieniemy, who has “no real responsibility.”
“Now you go from the Chiefs, where you could hide behind Patrick Mahomes, Andy Reid, you go to Washington, where you gotta call the plays, you gotta run the meetings, you gotta run the installs,” said McCoy, adding that Bieniemy being Black has nothing to do with not getting a head coaching job. “The last issue I have with him [is] what makes Andy Reid so great [is] not the play calls … it’s adapting to the players. My first practice, [Bieniemy] dog-cussing the players, and not just the regulars, [Travis] Kelce, other players.
“Where is the true value at?”
The Commanders and the rest of the NFL are about to find out.
