Chiefs Pass Game Coordinator Joe Bleymaier Discusses Filling Eric Bieniemy's Shoes

As the Kansas City Chiefs begin their second week of full-squad training camp, the club is still minus one of its top assistant coaches. Offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy remains away from the team following his wife getting shot multiple times in their Virginia home.

The good news is that Mia Bieniemy is doing better as she continues to recover, albeit not enough for the Kansas City coach to return to the Missouri Western State University campus. The Chiefs want to give the Bieniemy family as much time as it desires, which means counting on internal replacements to rise to the occasion.

Speaking to the media this week, pass game coordinator Joe Bleymaier said the coaching staff is doing just that.

"We've just stepped up," Bleymaier said. "We miss EB, obviously, but in the meantime, everybody — coach (Andy) Heck has taken on more roles with the run game and the offensive line. All of the position coaches have stepped up. There's just a little bit more administrative stuff to handle, but we've been doing this a long time. We all kind of know what's expected, and we've just been rolling from there."

According to Bleymaier, Bieniemy has been in touch with the team and "brought a little sense of normalcy" back to the team's routine with him offering some football-related thoughts. Bieniemy has access to practice film and more while back in Virginia, which keeps him in the loop with August 15's preseason debut on the horizon.

One thing many believed would be missing in the absence of Bieniemy is his demeanor. Known for giving players tough love and not being afraid of confrontation, Kansas City has needed that edge in recent years. He managed to bring it back for the start of this offseason, but his peers take a bit of a different approach.

Bleymaier, in particular, is trying to emulate some of that sense of accountability while also adding his own flair. Playing the role of OC hasn't been too drastic of a switch for him.

"Definitely a different style than EB," Bleymaier said. "Although I lost my voice here already, so some of him has worn off on me. But everyone has a different style. I think the guys want to be held accountable, and they want someone to just constantly remind them — not let anything slide — and just say, 'Here's what we're going to do.'

"When you have 100 plays, the tendency can be to point out the stuff that's egregious and then to let the little stuff slide play after play so it doesn't appear for 100 plays [that] you're just constantly nitpicking. But that's the role of the coordinator, that's the role of whoever's in that position, it's to just continually uphold the standard."

It's unclear when Bieniemy will come back to the team, which does create pressure for everyone to be on their A-game in the interim. That includes Bleymaier, Heck and even head coach Andy Reid. But the temporary loss of an impactful coach doesn't have to doom a training camp, as evidenced by K.C. finding ways to stay productive in the month of August.

It doesn't hurt that even when Bieniemy isn't on site with his fellow coaches, folks like Bleymaier still feel his presence.

"I thought about having everything run smoothly while he was gone and how he would take that," Bleymaier said. "The funny thing was he would not want anything to be smooth here. He would want this to be a challenging camp, the coaches to be challenging the guys, and for us to be getting better. That little voice in the back of your head, as you guys can imagine, from EB out here has been good motivation."

It's safe to say that by the time Bieniemy returns, the rest of the Chiefs will be ready to hit the ground running alongside him.

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