Getty Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid has multiple rising stars on his coaching staff.
Year after year, Kansas City Chiefs head honcho Andy Reid remains as one of the top coaching pipelines in the NFL.
Reid’s network of assistants has produced current head coaches like John Harbaugh (Baltimore Ravens), Sean McDermott (Buffalo Bills), Ron Rivera (Washington Commanders), Doug Pederson (Jacksonville Jaguars) and Todd Bowles (Tampa Bay Buccaneers) — as well as a long list of coordinators and ex-HCs including current staff members Matt Nagy and Steve Spagnuolo.
We know that offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy has drawn a ton of attention as a speculative coaching hire over the years and according to NFL Network insider Tom Pelissero, two more under-the-radar candidates could continue to rise through the ranks in the coming seasons.
Joe Bleymaier Listed for Commendable Work in WR Room
Pelissero went around the league, listing different coaching assistants that could be in line for HC interviews in 2023. Aside from Bieniemy — who was not included in this article — Kansas City didn’t have any staff members that are potentially a year away outside of former quarterbacks coach Mike Kafka (current New York Giants OC).
The 2022 staff did have two younger candidates come up in Pelissero’s honorable mention section, however, which he labeled as “NFL coaches to watch in future years.” They were wide receivers coach Joe Bleymaier and running backs coach Greg Lewis.
This is Bleymaier’s seventh campaign with Coach Reid and the Chiefs. Per KC’s official coaching profile, he “enters his second season as the wide receivers coach with the Chiefs in 2022 after serving three seasons as the pass game analyst/assistant quarterbacks coach (2018-20) and two as an offensive quality control coach (2016-17). [Bleymaier] came to Kansas City after previously spending three seasons at the University of Colorado as a quality control coach (2013-15).”
Bleymaier has certainly benefited from the trajectory of Patrick Mahomes’ career, both as an assistant quarterbacks coach and a wide receivers coach. His work in 2022 has been commendable after the front office decided to move on from Tyreek Hill.
With a totally new WR corps — aside from Mecole Hardman — the Chiefs lead the NFL in passing yards per game with 313.9 YPG. Is a lot of that because of Mahomes, Reid and Bieniemy? Of course, but Bleymaier has done a great job getting newcomers like JuJu Smith-Schuster, Marquez Valdes-Scantling, Justin Watson, Skyy Moore and Kadarius Toney up to speed.
Greg Lewis Named as RB Isiah Pacheco Emerges
As mentioned above, Lewis was the second on-the-rise assistant noted by Pelissero.
According to his coaching profile, “Lewis enters his second season coaching the running backs in Kansas City in 2022 after spending the previous four seasons overseeing the wide receivers (2017-20). This season marks his 16th year in the NFL, with prior stops as a wide receivers coach in Philadelphia (2016) and as an offensive assistant in New Orleans (2015), preceded by an eight-year NFL career as a wide receiver.”
With a long background inside the league as a player and coach, Lewis deserves some credit for Hill’s breakout stretch in 2017 and 2018. Remember, the current NFL superstar known as “the Cheetah” began his career as a fifth-round draft pick in 2016.
Lewis has also mentored wideouts like Chris Conley, Demarcus Robinson and Hardman to career-highs in different areas like yards, touchdowns and yards per catch.
In 2022, the ground game has struggled at times but Lewis has had success with seventh-round rookie Isiah Pacheco. When all is said and done, first-round disappointment Clyde Edwards-Helaire could end up becoming a blemish on his coaching resume but the Rutgers upstart might remedy that so long as he continues to turn heads as the new primary ball carrier in KC.