Accuracy is a funny thing.
"Fake news" is a common chant in political circles, but it certainly applies in any sphere these days, as the veracity of sources are questioned and sifting for the truth requires real effort. All of this is important because when trying to gauge the real perceptions of Kansas City Chiefs coordinators in NFL circles, it can be hard to tell what is true (or not).
Matt Nagy spent the final three months of the regular season as the assumed frontrunner for the Tennessee Titans' head coaching job, from the moment Brian Callahan was fired. Reports from Dianna Russini of The Athletic were the primary drivers of the narrative, but others joined in. Even as the Titans "finalized" their list down to three candidates, Nagy and two others remained. When the dust settled, however, that wasn't the case.
What's awkward about Nagy's pursuit of the Titans' job is that Mike Borgonzi was supposedly selecting between Jeff Hafley and Kevin Stefanski as his other two options. The Miami Dolphins took the former off the table, and the Atlanta Falcons hired the latter before Tennessee could or would decide. Then, instead of naming Nagy as their new head coach, the move that had felt scripted and made obvious all along, the Titans went with San Francisco 49ers defensive coordinator Robert Saleh.
Conflicting reports around Matt Nagy and Eric Bieniemy reveal how unreliable the NFL coaching carousel has become.
But Nagy isn't the only one with conflicting stock reports. Recent NFL history tells us that Eric Bieniemy went from red-hot coaching candidate as the offensive coordinator for the Chiefs' championship-winning roster to a man who had to return to the college ranks to find meaningful work without taking such a clear demotion.
Remember, Bieniemy interviewed with half of all NFL franchises—some of them even twice—and came up empty, year after year. He accepted a lateral move to the Washington Commanders to work with Ron Rivera and the Washington Commanders for a year before the whole regime was fired. Then came a failed stint with the UCLA Bruins as their associate head coach and offensive coordinator.
If not for a resurgent campaign with Ben Johnson's Exciting Bears center ring exhibit, it's safe to wonder how he would be viewed. Would he have gotten hired as Nagy's replacement by the Chiefs earlier this week? It's a reasonable question.
But reporter Josina Anderson is framing Bieniemy with a clashing narrative shortly after he was officially reunited with Andy Reid's offense. "Bieniemy has had other options at HC & OC on the table that he's been weighing, prior to his flight to KC this morning," wrote Anderson.
That's interesting. In a league where the coaching carousel has been spinning for weeks and a franchise like the Titans were publicly linked to 19 different candidates, Bieniemy has somehow taken interviews or earned such considerations completely out of view of a 24/7 media onslaught of NFL coverage. And it's not only offensive coordinator roles, but Anderson says Bieniemy had options to be a head coach. Interesting.
Maybe Anderson is referring to collegiate offers that came in. Perhaps the Las Vegas Raiders or Arizona Cardinals or Buffalo Bills or Pittsburgh Steelers were secretly courting Bieniemy following his stint as a running backs coach for a trending NFC franchise. It's all a mystery with a storyline that runs counter to a half-decade of evidence that says otherwise.
Going back to Nagy, the same opposing forces were at work there, with Nagy as a frontrunner for the first head coaching opening only for his own team to replace him before he even had a new job. Remember, Bieniemy is now gainfully employed while Nagy was searching for a place to call home. What are fans to believe?
The truth is that the interviews and job offers themselves speak much louder than a rumor or report that runs to the contrary. But the conflicts require Chiefs fans to do more work than they should have to do.