Eric Bieniemy on Travis Kelce’s shove: Chiefs have ‘bigger fish to fry’

The Kansas City Chiefs aren’t avoiding questions about Travis Kelce’s shove of Eric Bieniemy on the sidelines, but they’re also ready to move on from it.

The Kansas City Chiefs have endured a week to forget.

In fact, given all of the negative talking points around the team, you’d think they were 1-4 rather than 4-1 with a full game lead over the rest of the AFC West (or more). From the sloppy level of play in all facets of the game last Sunday to the myriad of injuries suffered on both sides of the ball, the Chiefs have plenty of worries. Then there was also the interpersonal issues at work between star tight end Travis Kelce and offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy.

On Sunday night, many of the Chiefs players and coaches were frustrated with the successful efforts of the visiting Colts to stymie their offensive game plan along with the team’s own penchant for timely mistakes. At one point, the emotions ran too high for Kelce who ended up having words and shoving Bieniemy on the sidelines.

To Kelce’s credit, it wasn’t too long until he came back around to hug the same coach and apologize. Clearly he knew putting his hands on his own coach is not acceptable and the two moved on as if nothing happened. Behind closed doors, the team likely took care of any remaining friction or words to be exchanged.

The Chiefs have been responsible in allowing both parties involved to answer questions from the media. Kelce spoke on Wednesday and said the two are now “good” and added that he was overly emotional at the time. “As far as what happened on the sideline, sometimes in football you get a little heated with your brothers or your coaches,” he said to reporters.

On Thursday, Matt Derrick reported Bieniemy’s own quotes and it sounds like the Chiefs O.C. is ready to move on from it all as the team hopes to right the ship against the Houston Texans.

"Now, for whatever reason, whatever happened took place,” Bieniemy said. “At the end of the day, we keep it moving because we got other bigger fish to fry. We’ve got an opponent that we need to go out and play against this week and that’s the focus, that’s the mindset."

If Kelce had not immediately owned his actions, it would have been interesting to see how the team might have handled the incident. Fortunately all parties involved have been mature in their actions, allowing themselves to be questioned and to explain the situation. Hopefully the team is able to enjoy the game this week and get back to winning a key game against a solid AFC opponent.