Does the name Eric Bieniemy ring a bell? It should.
As the supremely successful offensive coordinator of the Kansas City Chiefs, I previously wrote about his demoralizing struggle to ascend to the NFL’s head coaching ranks after the Chiefs beat the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl LIV:
That black coach would be offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy, who despite orchestrating the third-highest-scoring offense in league history last season, was forced to return to the Chiefs this year in a supplementary role because bigoted NFL owners won’t let him be great. More specifically, they refuse to hire black head coaches while the Freddie Kitchens of the world continue to be rewarded with jobs they don’t deserve.
This past off-season, Bieniemy went on interview after interview for head coaching vacancies that concluded with zero offers. And while the rest of the league remains perplexed at how his stellar resume continues to be ignored—because his resume isn’t the problem—per usual, another talented black man is forced to be the bigger person.
This saga would continue the following offseason, after Bieniemy once again found himself on the outside looking in once the NFL’s head coaching carousel came to a complete stop. Here’s what I had to say about that:
It was a foregone conclusion that with a treasure trove of head coaching vacancies available that Bieniemy—who couldn’t have been any hotter of a head coaching candidate—would be dipping out on the Chiefs in order to embark on his career as an NFL head coach. But after interviewing for almost every single head coaching gig available, the 51-year-old remains exactly where white owners and general managers believe he belongs: on the outside looking in.
Time and time again, this man has had to suffer the indignity of watching less qualified, unseasoned candidates leapfrog him for head coaching gigs while his Super Bowl championship pedigree gets passed on because he’s “unrelatable” or “doesn’t interview well”—which we all know is absolute bullshit.
It’s painfully clear that barring a miracle, Bieniemy will only become a head coach in the NFL if every white male on planet Earth simultaneously overdoses on white privilege and drops dead. So considering USC is in the market for a new monarch—after firing Clay Helton exactly two games into their season—it’s possible Bieniemy could tell the NFL to go fuck itself and instead embark on a head coaching career at the college level.
“League sources believe Chiefs’ OC Eric Bieniemy will emerge as a head-coaching candidate for USC,” NFL insider Adam Schefter tweeted. “Bieniemy is from Southern California and has told confidantes in the past, that USC is one of the only college jobs that might interest him.”
Prior to joining Kansas City, Bieniemy served as a running backs coach at UCLA and an offensive coordinator at Colorado. So if the NFL doesn’t appreciate the work he’s put in to help transform Patrick Mahomes into the face of the league, he should tell them to kiss his Black ass and write a love song about it post-haste.
He’d be an exceptional hire at USC, and I, for one, am a big advocate of never staying where you’re not wanted.