What will it take for Eric Bieniemy to get a head coaching job?

With every head coaching vacancy now full, it looks like Eric Bieniemy will stay with the Kansas City Chiefs. What will it take for him to get a head coaching job?

In 2003, the NFL instituted the Rooney Rule, a policy which requires teams to interview at least one minority for senior positions. While in theory the rule will increase the percentage of minorities who get head coaching positions, recent head coaching hires have brought the rule’s effectiveness into question. Notably with Chiefs’ offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy, who has been seen as a top head coaching candidate for the past couple years, but has not yet gotten the job.

At the end of this year’s regular season, there were five head coaching openings: the Carolina Panthers, Cleveland Browns, Dallas Cowboys, New York Giants, and Washington Redskins.

The Panthers hired Matt Rhule, who was the head coach of the Baylor Bears from 2017-2019. Before Baylor, Rhule coached for the Temple Owls where he coached for four seasons from 2013-2016. At Temple, Rhule went 2-10, 6-6, 10-4, and 10-3. Similarly, with Baylor, Rhule went 1-11 in his first year, 7-6 in his second year, and 11-3 this past season. After restoring two college football teams, the Panthers decided to give him the call, signing him to a seven-year $60 million contract.

The Browns hired Kevin Stefanski, former offensive coordinator of the Minnesota Vikings. In 2018, Stefanski was promoted from the Vikings’ quarterback coach to their interim offensive coordinator before taking over the job full time in 2019. With Stefanski as OC, the Vikings finished with the NFL’s 16th ranked offense. In their two postseason games this season, the Vikings’ offense was dead last.

The Cowboys hired Mike McCarthy, former head coach of the Green Bay Packers. McCarthy coached for Green Bay from 2006-2018 and led them to the playoffs nine times, but only won the Super Bowl once in 2010. An experienced coach like McCarthy makes sense for the Cowboys, but he was hired just two days after the Cowboys officially fired Jason Garrett.

The Giants hired Joe Judge, former special teams and wide receivers coach for the New England Patriots. Judge spent eight seasons with the Patriots working mostly with special teams until 2019, when he also became their wide receivers coach. With all the other names in the running for head coach, Judge seemingly came out of nowhere as a big surprise.

The Redskins hired Ron Rivera, former head coach of the Carolina Panthers. Rivera spent nine seasons with the Panthers, from 2011 to 2019. He took the Panthers to the playoffs four seasons including one Super Bowl, but never won the big game with them. Rivera, who is Latino, was the only minority to get a head coaching position this year.

These hirings have brought the Rooney Rule into question; however, all five teams followed and met the rule’s requirements. Eric Bieniemy interviewed with three of the five teams: The Carolina Panthers, the Cleveland Browns, and the New York Giants. Meanwhile, the Dallas Cowboys interviewed former Cincinnati Bengals coach Marvin Lewis and the Washington Redskins interviewed Ron Rivera, who they ultimately hired.

While Mike McCarthy and Ron Rivera both have NFL head coaching experience, Matt Rhule, Kevin Stefanski, and Joe Judge do not. Rhule, coming out of college, is unproved at the NFL level. Kevin Stefanski has been offensive coordinator for the Vikings, but he only has one year of experience at this position. Joe Judge’s closest position to head coach was the Patriots’ wide receivers coach. Eric Bieniemy has more NFL experience than all three of these candidates, so why didn’t he get the job?

This isn’t the first time Bieniemy has been passed up for head coach. At the end of last year’s regular season, there were eight openings at the head coach position. Last year, the Arizona Cardinals, Cincinnati Bengals, Cleveland Browns, Denver Broncos, Green Bay Packers, Miami Dolphins, New York Jets, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers all had head coaching vacancies.

Of these eight teams, Bieniemy  got interviews with half of them: the Bengals, the Buccaneers, the Dolphins, and the Jets. Despite these interviews, he still did not get the position. Chiefs head coach Andy Reid has praised Bieniemy, yet teams continue to pass up on him. Former Chiefs offensive coordinators Doug Pederson and Matt Nagy have both been hired as head coach with the Philadelphia Eagles and Chicago Bears respectively.

So what will it take for Eric Bieniemy to get a head coaching job? What more does he have to do before he gets the offer? At this point, it seems like he’s done all that he can; he’s coached up Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs to become the NFL’s #1 ranked offense a year ago and the NFL’s #6 ranked offense this year. For now, Bieniemy will stick with the Chiefs, but he clearly deserves to get the promotion to head coach.