Intense Eric Bieniemy ready to ‘pour my all’ into Bears RBs
When you’ve interviewed for 17 NFL head coaching jobs since 2019, you have a sense of how teams do things.
When you’re Eric Bieniemy, you file those ideas away with hopes of making yourself a better coach.
“The beauty of it is that everybody does it different,” Bieniemy, the Bears’ new running backs coach, said Thursday. “I think sometimes we can get stuck in the world that, ‘Hey, my way is the best way.’ That’s not a very good thing to live by.
“You’ve got to make sure that you’re keeping your horizons wide open. But on top of that, making sure that you’re broadening your vision to not be afraid of trying different things, opening up your circles of people so you can help diversify your thought process.”
The way Bieniemy does things, though, is unique. He comes to Halas Hall with a reputation as an intense coach who won’t hesitate to scream his way through practice to motivate his players.
“If you’re putting uncharacteristic behavior on tape, yeah, I’m going to get after your ass on that,” Bieniemy said. “But if you’re putting the right behavior on tape, I’m going to be your biggest fan.”
New head coach Ben Johnson said he expects Bieniemy to “coach the piss” out of the Bears’ running backs.
“I expect us to work hard, I expect us to play hard,” Bieniemy said. “These guys know because we’ve talked. I told them, ‘Hey I’m old school. If you don’t work, we don’t eat.’”
Johnson has been told by others around the league that Bieniemy is the best running backs coach in the NFL. He’s the most qualified. In 25 years coaching both pro and college, he’s served as the offensive coordinator of the Chiefs and Commanders and, at the college level, UCLA and his alma mater Colorado. He coached running backs for five seasons in Kansas City before spending five years as the Chiefs’ coordinator, though head coach Andy Reid called the plays. He was Adrian Peterson’s running backs coach with the Vikings, helping him total 5,782 rushing yards in four seasons. He’s won two Super Bowls.
With the Bears, he’s coaching running backs for the first time since 2017. He came to Halas Hall in part because of who was in the building: general manager Ryan Poles and special adviser and chief administrative officer Ted Crews, with whom he worked in Kansas City, and president/CEO Kevin Warren, who overlapped with his Vikings tenure. Warren said last month he was excited just “thinking about what he’s going to do for not only that running back room but for [quarterback] Caleb [Williams] as a runner.”
Bieniemy welcomes the specificity of his new job. The 55-year-old joked that he felt bad for the four running backs in the room — D’Andre Swift, Roschon Johnson, Travis Homer and Ian Wheeler — because they’ll be the focus of all energy. That number could grow, though, if the Bears add a running back in the draft — perhaps as early as Round 1.
“If we happen to bring in a guy we’re going to put our arms around him, we’re going to coach him up,” he said. “But he’s going to have to understand … what we’re going to live by.”
Bieniemy wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I’ve loved the opportunities that I’ve shared, that I’ve had the opportunity to have experience with,” he said. “But the best thing I’m fired up about right now is I’ve got four people in that room. I get to pour my all into those four guys.”
