Mellinger Minutes: Bieniemy’s options, and does Andy Reid save plays for the playoffs?
Eric Bieniemy will interview for three jobs this week. Actually, by the time you read that the number may have grown. Six head coaching jobs are open, and these things can move quickly.
The Chiefs’offensive coordinator is 0-for-7 in interviews so far. He’s been rejected by the Bengals, Jets, Panthers, Cardinals, Bucs, Giants and Browns.
He is said to be interviewing with the Falcons, Jets and Lions this week. The top coaching jobs with the Jaguars, Chargers and Texans are also open. If you’re reading closely, you may have chuckled at the absurdity of NFL hiring that Bieniemy will interview with the Jets two years after they passed him up for Adam Gase.
The shorthand for Bieniemy remaining an overqualified assistant is that the NFL’s hiring process is broken at best, racist at worst, and objectively tilted against minority candidates.
There are some real issues with the league’s hiring processes for such jobs. That’s not a secret. The NFL has admitted those issues, tried to fix them, and so far failed.
But Bieniemy and anyone rooting for his success would be doing him a disservice if they did not examine this more deeply.
First, let’s be real. Bieniemy is the top assistant for a Hall of Fame coach with a strong track record of assistants who’ve become successful head coaches. His players love him, even as they know he’s harder on them than anyone else.
Doug Pederson was Andy Reid’s offensive coordinator for three years. The Chiefs finished 15th, 12th, and sixth in Football Outsiders’ offensive DVOA in those seasons. They qualified for two postseasons, winning one game. Pederson was hired by the Eagles.
Matt Nagy was Reid’s offensive coordinator for one season. The Chiefs finished fourth in DVOA, and lost their first playoff game. Nagy was hired by the Bears.
Bieniemy has been Reid’s offensive coordinator for three seasons. The Chiefs finished first, third, and second in DVOA and qualified for their first AFC Championship Game in a generation and won their first Super Bowl in 50 years.
These are crude and flawed measurements, admittedly oversimplified. They are also facts.
Bieniemy has interviewed for jobs that instead went to a quarterbacks coach, a special teams coach, a college head coach, a fired college head coach and two fired NFL head coaches. Objectively, all but the two recycled NFL coaches had less experience.
The fired college head coach was Kliff Kingsbury, presumably hired in part because of his connection to Patrick Mahomes and the offense that reshaped the NFL. But the man whose voice Mahomes hears in his helmet, and who helps create that offense, waits.
Reid, Mahomes, and many others have publicly advocated for Bieniemy. Reid calls him as strong a leader as he’s ever been around. Mahomes will detail how closely he works with Bieniemy, crediting him with the team’s success.
The unfairness of this is obvious. Bieniemy was told he needed experience to be a head coach. He’s got that. Bieniemy was told he needed to work with quarterbacks, and in the passing game. He’s done that, and he’s still been passed over for men who’ve done it less, and less successfully.
This is what Bieniemy’s agent meant when he told Terez Paylor that “every year the standard changes.”
But Bieniemy has his part in this, too. He has eight years now in Reid’s system, which is widely regarded as one of the best for prospective coaches. The chops are unquestioned.
But the interviews haven’t landed. Bieniemy will be hired when he convinces an owner that he is the best man to lead his franchise forward. He will do that with a clear presentation, a plan for how he will handle everything from hiring assistants to player discipline to game-plan creation to play-calling.
Owners want stability. They abhor uncertainty. Bieniemy will be hired by an owner sold on his organizational skills and ability to communicate to everyone from the billionaire at the top to the practice-squad guy just hanging on.
Bieniemy should have been hired by now, and the fact that he hasn’t is a rough look for a league controlled by old money — a league that’s often been behind in everything from diversity to personal expression.
But the job he deserves — the one he’s earned — will only come if he’s able to continue to improve and clarify his presentation to owners.
Bieniemy’s greatest strengths are his relentless focus, a dogged work ethic, a strong grasp and enduring thirst to learn more about offense and a rare ability to be two types of leader — one who players adore, and one they know won’t let them get away with a thing.
He has all of that and now a Super Bowl ring to sell. This is his time to close. He has to approach this as if that part is on him as much as the team owner he’s talking to.
This week’s eating recommendation is the shawarma at Aladdin Cafe, and the reading recommendation is Mike DiGiovanna on my old friend Danny Knobler, who used to cover the Tigers and now runs a sports bar in Thailand.
Thanks to everyone who’s listened to our Mellinger Minutes For Your Ears podcast, and here is a big warm invitation to start if you haven’t already. We’re out from behind the paywall and free on Apple or Spotify or Stitcher or wherever you get your shows.
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I believe the Chiefs are the NFL’s best team.
I believe the gap between them and whoever is No. 2 — the Bills or Packers, probably — is smaller than it was two months ago.
I believe the best team at the end of the regular season often does not win the Super Bowl*.
* A year ago, the Ravens were the heavy betting favorite.
I’ve been saying this for months because it’s been true for months: The Chiefs are the best team, but one with some real flaws that could ruin their postseason. A lot of you got mad at me when I wrote that after the first Chargers game, but it’s always been true.
I also believe the Chiefs are judged by a different standard. Most of that is fair. It’s earned, because they’re the champs and they’re openly embracing the expectation of a dynasty.
But if we lose sight of reality, the discussion can come off as if the Chiefs have to play their absolute best — the kind of first quarter they played against the Ravens, but for four quarters — or else it’s open season.
That doesn’t make sense. The idea is to win football games. The Chiefs have done that more often than any other team this season, and longer. It’s like we want them to also win a sort of beauty contest, and get angry when they don’t.
They’re absolutely the prettiest team in the league when they’re on, but they’ve also won with performances that would be more accurately described as homely. That’s a feature, not a flaw.
Now, all that said, I do think there’s something to the idea that the Chiefs have generally played less than their best during the regular season knowing what’s really important.
We’ll get into this more below, but that’s not as simple as saving certain plays or formations for the postseason, or like you said playing at 80 percent or whatever.
I do think this team hasn’t been about the regular season for a few years now. It’s not quite an NBA team coasting through 82, but it’s also not grinding every minute to beat the Panthers in Week 9.
A list?
A list!
Before we begin: I believe any of these four teams can beat the Chiefs on the right day. They are each different, obviously, but overall I don’t see a huge gap between No. 1 and No. 4. The Super Bowl path this year will be more difficult than last year’s.
1. Titans. Derrick Henry is a potential first-ballot Hall of Famer at the absolute height of his powers. Henry averaged 5.4 yards per carry, and did it against defenses who knew he was getting the ball. Here’s the complete list of humans who’ve averaged more yards per carry while getting the ball more often than Henry: Eric Dickerson.
That’s it, that’s the list.
The Titans have flaws, primarily on defense. They were blown out by the Packers two weeks ago. But they have one of the league’s best offenses, with some game breakers on the outside who keep defenses sorta-kinda honest against Henry. They also seem to have some real magic around them this season, and that’s completely off-brand for me to mention, but there it is anyway.
2. Ravens. They have the league’s best run offense, and the Chiefs are vulnerable against the run. That’s a good place to start.
Their defense has turned itself into one of the league’s best, and over the last month or so Lamar Jackson is much closer to his MVP form. Marquise Brown can stretch on the back end and the Ravens have more than enough intermediate threats.
The possibility remains that the Ravens just aren’t up for the playoffs, or for whatever reason can’t play with the Chiefs. But it’s also possible that last year’s playoff flop was their version of the 2018 AFC Championship, and that the losses against the Chiefs have been learning moments.
I suspect many would have the Ravens No. 1 here, and I understand why.
3. Browns. And a lot of you might have the Browns No. 4 on this list, and I understand that as well. But I’m thinking more about the specific matchups with the Chiefs and less about ranking these teams overall 1 through 4.
For me, the Browns’ pass rush doesn’t depend on blitzes, and they’d have Myles Garrett lined up against Mike Remmers. Perhaps the league’s best pair of running backs could give the Chiefs heck, and there are enough playmakers in the passing game (Kareem Hunt counts here, too) to make things interesting.
4. Colts. If I’m ranking teams, they’re third with an argument for second. They have dudes on every level of the defense. Jonathan Taylor has run like a star for almost two months now. T.Y. Hilton and Zach Pascal can beat you on the outside. Their offensive line is one of the best in the league.
That’s why I think the Colts could beat the Chiefs on the right day.
But I also can’t get too excited about 39-year-old Philip Rivers in the postseason. He’s had a GREAT career, so no disrespect, but he also struggled the last two weeks and threw at least one interception against each playoff defense he faced this season.
I don’t know what the markets will end up like, but I’d love to see what this team would look like with a quarterback upgrade — either in the draft, or perhaps a trade.
I don’t believe in rust.
Or, perhaps more descriptively, I don’t believe there’s a logical, evidence-based argument that resting players in Week 17 games is bad.
You can cherry-pick examples to argue any side of this, but the evidence is all anecdotal. There’s no through line that says one approach is superior to the other. There is no one size fits all strategy here.
So the point I keep coming back to is this: it would have been professional malpractice for Andy Reid to play Patrick Mahomes and other stars against the Chargers two days ago.
Can you imagine the press conference if what happened to DeAndre Baker happened to Tyrann Mathieu?
Or what if that’s Travis Kelce limping to the locker room, instead of Willie Gay Jr.?
Both of the Chiefs’ starting tackles are carrying varying degrees of injury. Mahomes has been hit more over the last month than any other stretch of the season. Frank Clark was a different player with rest before last season’s playoffs.
Reid did not have much of a choice.
Now, that does not mean Tyreek Hill can eat Cheetos with the time off and everything will be fine.
There are steps the Chiefs must and will take to retain as much sharpness as possible. If the Chiefs start slow in the Division Round game, the broadcasters will 100 percent talk about rust.
But the Chiefs have started slow plenty of times without rest, and any argument for playing the stars against the Chargers must account for the unnecessary risk involved.
Think about it like this: If the Chiefs were the No. 2 seed instead of No. 1, would anyone argue that they were in better shape because they could create momentum for the Division Round?
I’m generally skeptical of these storylines. They’re fun to talk about and can make following these glorified kids’ games more interesting, but — again, generally — if you’re more motivated by some petty outside force to right some perceived wrong then you probably should have found that same motivation earlier.
But, same as his hair and voice and effectiveness on third down, Patrick Mahomes is different.
Whether it’s counting to 10 in Chicago or to four in Baltimore, we know that Mahomes is exactly petty enough to pay attention to and feel perceived slights. Heck, this is a man whose jersey number was chosen because it was his college number (5) + his draft position (10).
The presumed point is that he’s himself + the league’s doubt that allowed him to drop to the 10th pick.
Looked at another way, he literally wears his perceived disrespect on his chest and back every time he plays.
I’ve made versions of this point about Mahomes before, but the arrogance required for a quarterback from a program and system that had never before produced a star quarterback being OFFENDED that he was a top-10 NFL pick is surpassed only by the talent and ability that makes said offense entirely legitimate.
All that said, the Bills are absolutely a worthy competitor for the Chiefs and I believe Rodgers will be the deserved MVP.
More on that second part soon.
Of all the potential playoff problems, this is one I did not anticipate.
If anything, the Chiefs have too many guys capable of returning punts. But now it can fairly wondered if they have any.
The answer I want to give is that Hill is the home run hitter here, and potentially the sport’s most dangerous punt returner. But he’s also returned just one punt this season, and muffed the one in the playoffs last year.
Demarcus Robinson is a decent answer in theory, but I don’t know how you’d trust him back there after the safety — this close to a touchdown — against the Saints.
My tendency is to trust Byron Pringle, but his next punt return will be his first as a professional.
So, I go back to the beginning.
Hill is the guy I’d least want to see if I was the opposing team. If he’s had enough reps in practice to feel like he can do it without any problems, that’s where I’d go for the postseason.
If not, then I’m rolling with Hardman as long as he understood the risk-reward balance back there, especially near the goal line.
This is where Dave Toub has to have a feel for his guys. I trust that he does.
The whole of Andy Reid’s coaching career has generally shown that the more time he has, the better he’ll be.
You’re right to point out this isn’t exactly like a regular season bye, because the Chiefs don’t know their next opponent. But I would point out that Reid and his coaches don’t use all of the extra time in a regular season bye focused on one opponent, either.
They do a lot of self-scouting with that time, and prep on other future opponents. They take inventory of their processes — everything from installs to play calling — and see where they can improve.
That time could be particularly valuable right now, as it’s three weeks to sharpen the mechanics of pass protection calls and blitz pickups with an offensive line that hasn’t had a lot of time together.
It’s not quite this simple, but more than anything else, I believe the Chiefs’ success or failure with that specific challenge will determine their postseason.
It’s also worth noting that the Chiefs are preparing for specific playoff opponents right now. It’s a little different in that when practice resumes on Thursday the players won’t have a gameplan to begin installing, but the coaches will make sure they’re not starting from scratch after Sunday’s games.
The process is a bit like college basketball coaches during March Madness: assistants divide the work to cover all possible opponents.
In the NFL version, the quarterbacks do the same. The work keeps everyone in rhythm, and game plans that won’t be used can be saved and referenced later.
The Chiefs’ next opponent is doing the same thing, by the way. Not the coordinators, and probably not even the position coaches. But everybody does this. You work ahead, so that the work ahead is smoother and more productive.
So, which team would you rather be?
The one working on spec game plans while preparing for a win-or-go-home game?
Or the one working on spec game plans while your body recovers?
I promised you more on this!
This isn’t exactly the way it works. Reid does not have a specific play that’s been off limits for 16 games that’s now suddenly on the table. They don’t do it that way.
There are plays the Chiefs will use in the playoffs that we have not yet seen. Some are their own things, a one-off, and some are complements to what they’ve done already — Jet Chip Wasp was related to a play the Chiefs ran against the Patriots in the playoffs the year before.
The Rose Bowl play from the Super Bowl is a good example of the point here. The Chiefs had that in the playbook all season. They’d practiced it often, included it in regular-season game plans. Reid even made a point to give the officials a heads up before games, because of the unusual nature of its pre-snap motion.
But the right opportunity didn’t come until the Super Bowl.
The Chiefs have a little more freedom than most. That’s one of the benefits of having a Hall of Fame coach and a loaded roster.
The difference between 14-2 and 12-4 can be a few plays, but you know the thing is strong enough to make the playoffs.
The key, then, is to make sure the version that’s in the playoffs is as good as it can be. This isn’t just a Mahomes thing. This was true for Alex Smith’s last few years, too.
Some of that is play calls — not just new designs, but a better feel for tempo and the right moment for the right play.
But I would argue that more of it is about broad strokes, and less about specific play calls. It’s about getting the pass protection calls right, and timing blitzes, and securing punt and kick returns.
The trick plays are fun. But the other stuff is what turns playoff games more often.
Romeo was better for the Chiefs than the Chiefs were for him. That’s the first thing that comes to mind.
There are some funny stories, like the time he put up an ELIMINATE BAD FOOTBALL sign in the locker room in an effort to stop a losing streak. They were beating themselves, he explained.
The losing continued, so he put up a PLAY GOOD FOOTBALL sign. Better to keep the thoughts positive, he explained.
That’s when someone — I wish I remembered who — asked why he didn’t put up a sign that said WIN THE SUPER BOWL.
We’re not quite ready for that, Crennel explained.
But, mostly, I remember a caring and steady man in a franchise that was lacking a lot of care and stability. The players adored him, and when he was named interim coach toward the end of the 2011 season I genuinely believe they played out of their minds for him in beating the 14-0 Packers.
Clark Hunt was all but forced to give Crennel the full-time job after that. The thinking was that Crennel’s struggles as the Browns’ head coach from 2005-08 were more about the Browns and less about Crennel, and the truth is we’ll probably never know because Vince Lombardi himself wasn’t going to win with the 2012 Chiefs.
From what I could see, Crennel was a fantastic defensive coach who had the respect of his players, and was overmatched as a head coach.
Which puts him in the 99th percentile of professional football coaches.
This is a hard question for me. Because I believe that Mahomes is the best football player on the planet, but I also believe that Aaron Rodgers should be the MVP.
Have I just been conditioned over the years to look at numbers?
Do I have a subconscious tendency to pick someone “new,” sort of like Karl Malone over Jordan in 1997?
And, yes, I realize Rodgers won the MVP in 2011 and 2014 ... so am I wrapped up in the traditional narrative where Rodgers winning the MVP after his team traded up for his backup is a better story than giving it to Mahomes again?
But, man. How can you be better than Rodgers this year? He led the league with 48 touchdowns and threw only five interceptions. He attacked downfield, played smart, made big plays when it mattered.
He stunk against the Bucs, sure, but is that the entire case against him?
That and he’s playing behind a better offensive line than Mahomes?
Seems like you need more than that for a convincing case.
There are separate strands of arguments about what the Eagles did.
If you want to make the case that Doug Pederson did his team a disservice, fine. You can say you wanted to see Jalen Hurts perform in that situation, or that giving an overmatched quarterback the fourth quarter ruined his confidence and put a crack in the culture that good teams try to build.
I’ll disagree with those points, but I understand them.
If you want to make the case that as long as the outcome of a game matters to either team that both teams have a responsibility to play it straight up, fine.
Again, I disagree. But I understand.
But if your argument is that the Giants got screwed here then I sincerely can’t understand your failed logic. Because the Giants stunk in 2020. They started 1-7. They finished 31st out of 32 teams in scoring. They would have been the first 10-loss playoff team in league history.
They had more than enough opportunities to qualify. More than enough chances to win.
The idea that some other team owed them a crumb of anything is preposterous.
The idea that they lost 10 games — that’s last place in the NFC West, by the way — despite playing in one of the worst divisions in league history and somehow weren’t given an honest shot at the playoffs is so ridiculous it should be rejected by reasonable people.
This is all sort of weird for me, because I actually believe the Giants have a bright future. They have some good young talent, and as skeptical as I was of some of Joe Judge’s High School Harry stuff, that team appears to have stuck together.
But this isn’t a good look.
Less whining.
More winning.
I know this isn’t the point, but I would argue that Greinke’s surrender helped both team and player. The Royals got Lorenzo Cain and Alcides Escobar and a key part of the Wade Davis/James Shields trade. They would not have won consecutive pennants or a World Series without that deal.
Greinke hasn’t won a World Series, but he has pitched in one, and played on teams that qualified for seven of the last 10 postseasons. He’s built an interesting Hall of Fame case and made $282 million.
It’s hard to imagine he has any regrets.
Your main point here is a good one, which is that athletes are paid to perform a task, and any of us who are paid to perform tasks should act like adults.
Athletes know this, but they’re also human. How many of us have been unhappy professionally from time to time? How many of us probably weren’t giving our honest best effort because of it?
Athletes make what Deion Sanders famously called “business decisions” all the time. There is risk, because nobody wants to be labeled a quitter.
A direct relationship exists between an athlete’s talent and his ability to get away with these business decisions, and I think Greinke would look at his career and believe he made the right decision.
I don’t do this often, but I would like to compliment Roger Goodell and the league.
They still need to complete a postseason, but the 2020 regular season was as smooth as could be reasonably expected.
Was it perfect? Of course not. And I would argue the league could have benefitted from an open week at the end of the season, sort of a Covid catch-all that might have lessened some of the disruptions.
Some weeks were a mess. Many games were rescheduled, a few multiple times. The Broncos played a game without a quarterback. The Patriots took an actual COVID plane for a road trip. But they played every game and limited spread of the virus.
Football breeds overreaction, and there were otherwise level-headed people who work in and around the NFL who at times thought the whole thing should be shut down. Only Goodell can know if that was ever reasonably serious, but they got the whole thing in.
Our country’s obsession with sports is probably not healthy. It’s illogical, and if you go down the rabbit hole and compare the way athletes are paid and treated to, say, teachers ... well, then you can make yourself crazy.
But this is the world we’ve set up. Sports mean a lot to people. Especially football. I know I can’t speak on this objectively, because it’s a critical part of my livelihood, but I’m grateful that the league was able to handle this season as well as it did.
Put my job to the side for a moment. It gave a lot of us something to look forward to, something to immerse ourselves in.
A lot of people spend a lot of time talking about everything that went wrong in 2020. I’d argue that the NFL is one thing that went right. Or, at least, as right as could be reasonably expected.
I continue to marvel at how differently he’s discussed now compared to when he played here. What’s wild is that some of the specific people who were crushing him the worst when he was the Chiefs quarterback are the same specific people who are the loudest with the praise now.
Some of those people are reading these words. You know who you are. It’s part of the game, I get that. But it’s still funny.
Alex Smith has had a career unlike anyone else in the history of football. Nobody’s seen what he’s seen.
Nobody’s been the No. 1 overall pick before their 21st birthday, more reporters covering his first practice than covered all but one of his college games, stuffed into a vortex of incompetence, blamed for large parts of it, given a new (and usually bad) offensive coordinator every season, missed an entire year because of a shoulder surgery in which the doctor mistakenly left a wire in the wrong spot, stuck with it all and, when finally given a competent coach, beat Drew Brees in a playoff shootout and lost the conference championship game when the punt returner fumbled twice.
Nobody’s washed that away, then led the league in passer rating for another Super Bowl contender, then lost his job because of a concussion. Nobody’s stewed on that on the sideline and in the locker room only to flush it all and be a model teammate.
Nobody’s then been traded to a 2-14 team, served as a critical part of the rebuild, and just when the thing was positioned to contend for a Super Bowl watched his team decline to draft the help needed and instead trade up for his replacement, then be asked to help that replacement grow, and then perform that task so admirably they’re still talking about it long after it became obvious that the replacement would have been just fine regardless.
Then, goodness, a devastating leg injury that became life threatening and he’s back and in the playoffs? Say what you will about the NFC East this year, and say what you will about #QBwinz, but Washington is 11-5 in games Smith has started the last three seasons and 6-26 in games he hasn’t.
He’s a former No. 1 overall pick who’s made more than $100 million in his career, and he’s somehow become a gritty underdog. Nobody’s ever had a career like this.
Alex Smith will not make the Hall of Fame, and he probably won’t win a Super Bowl. But in a lot of real ways he’s had as impressive a career as anyone since he’s been in the league.
At the risk of turning this too serious, the certificate from my divorce. A decision I don’t think I ever would have made, and one that’s turned into the absolute best thing I could ever imagine.
Piece of paper would make for a pretty crappy trophy, though.
This weekend I’m particularly grateful that the kids are back in school. We had a blast the last few weeks*, but I think all four of us know we need some form of structure back. Eternally grateful to all teachers and administrators who are making this possible.
* Though, if I’m honest, 80 percent of our parental decisions have been some form of “Christmas break, COVID, screw it — cake for breakfast.”
This story was originally published January 5, 2021 at 5:00 AM.