Super Bowl 57 already has a ton of storylines. Andy Reid will be facing a franchise that he once led to football’s biggest stage. Travis and Jason Kelce are making history as the first brothers to play against each other in the game. Patrick Mahomes and Jalen Hurts are the first two Black quarterbacks to headline. And then there’s the subplot that people are overlooking — the fact that the Kansas City Chiefs have reached five AFC Championship Games and three Super Bowls since Eric Bieniemy took over as offensive coordinator, and he still hasn’t been offered a head coaching job.
Days after Kellen Moore “mutually agreed to part ways” with the Dallas Cowboys as their offensive coordinator, he was hired by the Los Angeles Chargers to do the same job in another example of how NFL franchises love to keep hiring the same white guys over and over.
This isn’t about Moore or how his race is the reason why he will remain gainfully employed until he decides to hang it up. It’s about what Moore represents, which is the infatuation that teams have with putting white coaches at the front of the line — skipping the usually overqualified Black candidates that have more than waited their turn for promotion.
“You guys know how I feel about Eric,” Reid said about Bieniemy back in 2020. “I think he’d be tremendous. There’s a team out there — I don’t know the team, but there’s a team out there — that could really use him. Being the leader of men that he is, you’re not going to find people better than that in that category. And he’s a sharp offensive mind on top of that. So I’m a big fan. Don’t want to lose him, but reality is, there’s a good chance that happens.”
Over the last few years, Bieniemy has been interviewed close to 20 times for head coaching jobs but has yet to receive an offer. It’s mind-blowing given that the Chiefs took off on this historic run once he and Mahomes became the architects of one of the most electrifying offensives in the league’s history.
But, instead of telling you just how unfair this has been to Bieniemy, I’m going to show you. Here’s a look at the white offensive assistants that have been hired as head coaches since Bieniemy and the Chiefs started their run in 2018.
