KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Eric Bieniemy is back in the Chiefs’ facility, and the habitual turns of phrases are back along with him. The “grind,” as he says. The “chopping wood.” The “good, the bad, the ugly and the indifferent.”

E.B., as even he put it in his introduction to Kansas City on Wednesday afternoon, is still E.B.

Or his re-introduction to Kansas City.

He’s familiar, a known commodity inside a building he called home for a decade. Chiefs head coach Andy Reid prioritized that familiarity when looking for an offensive coordinator to replace Matt Nagy. He wanted someone who knew the place and, more importantly to him, knew his offense.

That priority — comfort — has been the focus of some analysis, including my own, of what might (or might not) change in the offense.

But Bieniemy still technically arrives as the outside hire after one-year stops at Washington, UCLA and Chicago. That probably seems like semantics, given the fact that a decade-long run in Kansas City preceded those three stops, but it’s an important distinction. Or at least it could be.

Two days after Reid seemed to have more praise than critique for an offense that sputtered in big moments throughout the recently concluded season, Bieniemy walked into the team’s Kansas City facility prepared to dig into the particulars of the 2025 Chiefs.

Here’s the distinction from the man who re-hired him: Bieniemy won’t be grading his own work. The Chiefs will receive a perspective absent the natural bias that comes with evaluating yourself. And that perspective will come from someone who’s never had much of a problem making his voice heard, even if it means ruffling a few feathers.

Isn’t that part of what they need?

“He’s going to be very direct with players,” Reid said Monday, two days before Bieniemy drove into town.

And then he added the part we all seemed to miss: “Very direct with coaches.”

For all the attention on the quote-unquote accountability Bieniemy will demand of players, that comes later this spring.

The unreserved feedback on the offense comes first.

I’ve questioned, even doubted, how much of the scheme will truly change with Bieniemy hired as offensive coordinator. It’s a reminder this is still Reid’s offense — always has been and always will be.

There are enough positive metrics — yards per drive, the percentage of drives that resulted in points among the top ones — that Reid seems to question how much of the scheme needs to change. He called it top-10 in one sentence Monday, and top-five in the next. That used to be expected with Patrick Mahomes at quarterback, hardly a bragging point — and certainly never a defense.

Reid isn’t exactly inclined to reveal all the planned adjustments on a conference call with media. We should put more stock into the training camp implementation than the January words.

The reality is we won’t know how much of a reality check a 6-11 season will provide. But the other reality is that if Bieniemy feels it necessary, he’ll gladly provide the reality check himself — long before training camp begins.

“That’s why we get paid,” he said, when I asked him his comfort in providing constructive criticism. “We’re coaches, right?”

The Chiefs have plenty of smart ones in that room. Bieniemy underscored that multiple times, too. This team — and largely this staff — appeared in five of the past seven Super Bowls and won three of them.

It’s been good.

But it’s also been seen.

Outside the building, the rest of the league has been studying the Chiefs. Mahomes mentioned it earlier this month. It’s seemed as though some defenses have known what to expect.

While the onus on becoming less predictable will still largely fall to Reid and Co., that’s actually the second step.

The first step? Admitting they need to be less predictable.

“Anybody can present an idea, but more importantly, we need to make sure first and foremost that we’re taking a look at anything that we need to continue to improve upon or continue working with — and make sure that we’re getting all the answers first with that,” Bieniemy said. “And then (we) figure out where do we need to go from there.”

The admission.

Then the solution.

If the Chiefs believe they were this close to being elite offensively, it’s on Bieniemy to put them on a different track as they pivot to a solution. I’ll offer an example. The Chiefs know their running game stunk. They should know it’s a personnel issue. But they better know it’s more than just that.

With Bieniemy as coordinator — after serving previously as running backs coach — the Chiefs turned Damien Williams, formerly an undrafted free agent, into a Super Bowl champion, and nearly a Super Bowl MVP candidate. They got 1,000 yards from scrimmage out of Darrel Williams, an undrafted free agent, two years later. They turned 30-year-old Jerick McKinnon, after two serious knee surgeries, into one of the most productive receiving running backs in the NFL the next season. He had three more receiving touchdowns than any other back in 2022.

While Bieniemy was in Chicago last season as running backs coach, the Bears were the only team in the NFL to have at least two 750-yard rushers — one of them a seventh-round rookie and the other a back who’d averaged 3.8 yards per carry the year before.

It’s more than the personnel that drives a run game. And it’s the run game that needs to do a far better job of driving the passing game in Kansas City.

This is a microcosm of the larger point. Bieniemy can be proof of that. He’s been proof of that in the past.

But first? He can remind the Chiefs of it.

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