Getty Long-time offensive coach Pep Hamilton with the Indianapolis Colts in 2014.
With former offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy officially moving on to Washington, the Kansas City Chiefs must determine how they would like to fill the void on the coaching staff.
The most popular and likely theory is that Matt Nagy — the 2022 quarterbacks coach and Kansas City’s former OC in 2017 — reclaims the role. If that occurs, the domino effect creates a coaching vacancy at the QB position. That’s where Pep Hamilton enters the conversation.
On February 23, CBS Sports NFL insider Josina Anderson reported: “I’m told the Chiefs have explored the possibility of adding Pep Hamilton to their staff, per league sources. Hamilton served as the [Houston] Texans offensive coordinator in 2022. The carousel is fluid, with a lot of moving parts still up in the air. We’ll see how it goes.”
Who Is Chiefs Coaching Candidate Pep Hamilton?
For those of you who are unfamiliar with Hamilton’s work, he’s one of the more well-respected quarterback coaches in the NFL.
The former Stanford offensive coordinator and quarterback coach’s claim to fame is probably Andrew Luck, who he helped develop in college before following him back to the NFL with the Indianapolis Colts. His resume spans back before that, however, beginning with the quarterbacks coach job at Howard University in 1997 as a 23-year-old.
Hamilton was promoted to OC at Howard before earning his first professional position with the New York Jets in 2003. Before long, he was working in the QB room of the Jets and then the QB room of the San Francisco 49ers in 2006, working with younger signal-callers like Chad Pennington and Alex Smith at the time.
His first “head” quarterbacks coaching role came with the Chicago Bears in 2007 under Lovie Smith. That team saddled Hamilton with three different starting QBs and went 7-9, but the following season, the guru helped Kyle Orton lead the 2008 Bears to a 9-7 record and a 14th ranked offense.
Hamilton’s final year in Chicago was with Jay Cutler as the signal-caller, but that combination didn’t work as well as the team and offense regressed to 7-9 and 19th in points.
At this point, Hamilton did a sort of career reset at Stanford, and that’s where he found Luck — both literally and figuratively. The two worked well together and the former Colts superstar practically requested him as his OC in Indy after Bruce Arians found his first head coaching job in Arizona.
With Hamilton, Luck led the Colts to the playoffs in 2013 and 2014. The OC eventually relinquished the role in 2015, but his talents have always been as a QB mentor, not necessarily as a top play-caller.
After bouncing around a bit with gigs in Cleveland, Michigan and Washington as the head coach of the XFL’s DC Defenders, Hamilton landed on his feet in Los Angeles in 2020 as the QB coach of Justin Herbert and the Chargers. Herbert won offensive rookie of the year that season, and his key mentor earned a promotion in Houston.
Year two may not have gone as planned with the Texans — after being promoted to offensive coordinator — but Hamilton had a tremendous year one within the organization with rookie third-round pick Davis Mills outperforming first-round talents like Zach Wilson, Trey Lance and Justin Fields for most of the campaign. As you might have guessed, Hamilton was Mills’ quarterbacks coach in 2021.
Chiefs Coaching Search Could Move Quickly
With Bieniemy leaving his OC position so late in the process, the Chiefs coaching search should move quickly. As noted above, many expect Nagy to be promoted into Bieniemy’s position, but there may not be too many QB coaches with a track record like Hamilton’s that are available as we head into March.
That means Pep could be the man to beat as Patrick Mahomes II looks for his new right-hand man in the QB room. Fans have suggested ex-players like the aforementioned Alex Smith or the recently retired Chad Henne, but as of now, there has been little movement on those fronts.
We’ll continue to monitor this situation as head coach Andy Reid looks to fill out his staff for the 2023 season.