Coaching Matters: 2022 Kansas City Chiefs Coaching Staff Preview

July 9, 2022

Eli Grabanski breaks down the 2022 Kansas City Chiefs coaching staff in search of buy-lows, fantasy football sleepers, and risers based on play-calling and historical data.

After every NFL season, NFL teams take the time to evaluate not only the players but also the coaching staff and front office as well. While many teams choose to retain the same head coach, offensive coordinator, and defensive coordinator, a few other teams opt to go in a new direction with their coaching staff.

One team that managed to maintain its core coaching staff this offseason was the Kansas City Chiefs, with head coach Andy Reid, offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy, and defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo all returning for the 2022-23 season.

This article will look at the potential impact this coaching staff will have on the players and try to pinpoint the Chiefs players' fantasy values in it.

The Baseline

To get a better understanding of the value the Chiefs coaches bring to this team, we can look at the NFL league averages in each of the past two years in a variety of statistical categories and then compare them to the averages achieved by the Chiefs' coaches. Here are 'The Baseline' NFL league averages over the past couple of years:

QB Impact

RB Impact

WR Impact

TE Impact

Defense Impact

2022 Offense

2022 Head Coach: Andy Reid

The Kansas City Chiefs hired Andy Reid to be the team's head coach back in 2013 after he spent 14 seasons as the head coach with the Philadelphia Eagles (1999-2012). He's been one of the best coaches in the NFL over the past two decades, compiling a 233-135-1 record during his head coaching career. Given Andy Reid's offensive background, let's dive into some offensive statistics from Reid's time in a head coaching role in order to get a better understanding of how Reid has historically utilized his players.

QB Impact

RB Impact

WR Impact

TE Impact

2022 Offensive Coordinator: Eric Bieniemy

Eric Bieniemy got promoted to the Kansas City Chiefs offensive coordinator job in 2018 after serving as the team's running backs coach from 2013 to 2017. While he's never been the team's offensive play-caller, let's take a look at some statistics from Eric Bieniemy's time in the Chiefs offensive coordinator role.

QB Impact

RB Impact

WR Impact

TE Impact

Andy Reid and Eric Bieniemy Takeaways & Expectations

Because Andy Reid has been the primary play-caller for the Chiefs and Eric Bieniemy has only worked under Reid as an offensive coordinator, we will primarily focus on the type of offense that Andy Reid has preferred to run over the course of his career in this section. Over the course of Reid's 369-game NFL career, his offenses have averaged 34.82 passing attempts, 249.34 passing yards, and 1.63 passing touchdowns per game. These career numbers are in the same ballpark as the NFL league averages over the last two years. Even more encouraging is that it's been a slightly different story since Patrick Mahomes became the team's starting quarterback in 2018, as the offense has averaged 37.91 passing attempts, 303.97 passing yards, and 2.42 passing touchdowns per game over the last four years. This passing usage in recent years is above the league average and suggests that the team will continue to give Mahomes plenty of opportunities to put up big passing numbers.

It's also important to pay attention to the amount of rushing work a quarterback receives since it can give your quarterback a higher ceiling in fantasy leagues. Over the course of his career as a head coach, Reid's quarterback room has averaged 4.43 carries per game.

Based on the QB carries graph above, Andy Reid has seen an above-average number of rushing attempts from his quarterbacks in the majority of the seasons he's been a head coach. This rushing usage is very encouraging to see and means that Mahomes should at the very least have decent rushing production in 2022. Based on all this information, Mahomes should once again be one of the first quarterbacks off the board in your 2022 fantasy draft(s).

Jumping to Andy Reid's running back rooms over the course of his career, it's a little bit more of a mixed bag. In the 369 regular-season games that Reid has been an NFL head coach, his running back room has averaged 19.93 carries, 87.18 rushing yards, and 0.64 rushing touchdowns per game on the ground.

These numbers are all below the league averages we've seen the last few years and suggest that if old trends hold true, Andy Reid's running back room will end up with a below-average number of carries in 2022. In terms of the distribution of carries, is Reid feeding one back on the ground or rolling with a running back by committee approach?

For much of his career, Andy Reid has loved to primarily feature one running back on the ground, but this hasn't been the case over the last couple of seasons. In the last two seasons, Reid hasn't appeared to trust Clyde Edwards-Helaire to carry the bulk of the workload as he has done with so many of his backs in the past, as Edwards-Helaire has just 300 carries to his name through two seasons (23 games). With the team adding Ronald Jones II to the roster this offseason via free agency, it is likely that Reid embraces more of a committee-style backfield again in 2022 and rolls with roughly a 60-40 or 55-45 carries split between Edwards-Helaire and Ronald Jones.

The final aspect we should look at concerning Andy Reid's running backs is how much he has traditionally utilized them as pass-catchers. Over the course of his career, Reid's running back room has averaged 6.73 targets per game – which is in the average to slightly above league-average range.

Overall, the combination of Andy Reid providing a below-average number of carries and a mediocre number of targets to his running back room means that it will take a significant percentage of the workload going to one running back in order for one of his running backs to finish as an RB1. Reid hasn't been as willing to give the lion's share of the workload to any of the Chiefs' running backs in recent years, so going into the season it's best to view Clyde Edwards-Helaire as an upside FLEX option in your drafts.

Moving on to the wide receiver position, in Andy Reid's 369-game career as an offensive play-caller he has provided his wide receiver room with 18.66 targets per game.

During the 2020 and 2021 seasons, the team did a good job of getting the team's wide receivers involved, but looking at the career averages, Andy Reid's wide receiver room has been utilized at a slightly below-average rate in comparison to other coaches. Because the team traded away star wideout Tyreek Hill to the Miami Dolphins this offseason, it's very likely that the team features its wide receivers less in 2022 and falls back to numbers closer to Andy Reid's career averages. With this workload, even in this high-powered offense there's likely only going to be room for one or maybe two fantasy-relevant wide receivers for the Chiefs in 2022, so going into training camp it'll be important to pay attention to how the wide receiver hierarchy is shaping up between JuJu Smith-Schuster, Skyy Moore, Mecole Hardman, and Marquez Valdes-Scantling.

Finally, Reid's historical usage of tight ends is pretty good. In his 23-year career as an NFL head coach, Reid's tight end room has averaged 7.45 targets per game.

In recent years, the number of targets has been significantly higher than Reid's career 7.45 targets per game average as well, hovering around ten targets per game over the last five seasons. This kind of usage makes star tight end Travis Kelce a pretty safe investment at the tight end position heading into the 2022 NFL season since he's the clear number one receiving option on the team and has one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL throwing him the ball. Kelce should be a top-three fantasy tight end once again as long as he's healthy and on the field.

Fantasy Relevant Players: Patrick Mahomes, Chad Henne, Clyde Edwards-Helaire, Ronald Jones II, Derrick Gore, JuJu Smith-Schuster, Mecole Hardman, Marquez Valdes-Scantling, Skyy Moore, Josh Gordon, Travis Kelce, and Blake Bell

2022 Defense

2022 Defensive Coordinator: Steve Spagnuolo

Steve Spagnuolo has spent 11 years in an NFL head coach or defensive coordinator role and has been the Kansas City Chiefs defensive coordinator since 2019. Prior to becoming the Chiefs defensive coordinator, he spent time as the New York Giants defensive coordinator (2007-2008, 2015-2017), the St. Louis Rams head coach (2009-2011), and the New Orleans Saints defensive coordinator (2012). Below are some of the defensive statistics his teams have compiled over the course of his career in a defensive coordinator or head coaching role.

Other Notable Assistants

Special Teams Coordinator: Dave Toub - Dave Toub has been the Kansas City Chiefs special teams coordinator since 2013. He's been coaching since 1986 and was also the special teams coordinator for the Chicago Bears from 2004 to 2012.

QB Coach: Matt Nagy - The Kansas City Chiefs were high on former quarterbacks coach Mike Kafka but couldn't retain him this offseason, as he left to become the New York Giants' offensive coordinator. To take his place, they will bring in a familiar face – former Chicago Bears head coach (2018-2021) Matt Nagy. In the years before he was hired as the Chicago Bears head coach, Nagy worked for the Chiefs as a quarterbacks coach (2013-2015) and offensive coordinator (2016-2017).

RB Coach: Greg Lewis - Greg Lewis has been coaching for the Chiefs since 2017, but in 2021 he switched from the team's wide receivers coach to being their running backs coach. Besides the Chiefs, at the NFL level, Lewis has been an offensive assistant for the New Orleans Saints (2015) and a wide receivers coach for the Philadelphia Eagles (2016). Lewis was also a wide receiver in the NFL for the Philadelphia Eagles (2003-2008) and Minnesota Vikings (2009-2010).

WR Coach: Joe Bleymaier - Joe Bleymaier is in his second year as the Chiefs' wide receivers coach in 2022 after previously serving as an assistant quarterbacks coach with the team from 2018 to 2020.

TE Coach: Tom Melvin - Tom Melvin has been working on Andy Reid's coaching staff since Reid first became a head coach back in 1999 with the Philadelphia Eagles. He's been the Chiefs tight ends coach since 2013 and prior to that was the Philadelphia Eagles tight ends coach from 2002 to 2012.

OL Coach: Andy Heck - Andy Heck has been the Chiefs' offensive line coach since 2013. Prior to being the Chiefs' offensive line coach, he was with the Jacksonville Jaguars as an assistant offensive line coach (2004-2005) and the offensive line coach (2006-2012).

DL Coach: Joe Cullen - The Kansas City Chiefs will have a new defensive line coach in 2022, Joe Cullen, as Brendan Daly moves from defensive line coach to linebackers coach. Cullen has a lot of experience as a defensive line coach, including at the NFL level for the Detroit Lions (2006-2008), Jacksonville Jaguars (2010-2012), Cleveland Browns (2013), Tampa Bay Buccaneers (2014-2015), and Baltimore Ravens (2016-2020). In his most recent position, he served as the Jacksonville Jaguars defensive coordinator (2021).

LB Coach: Brendan Daly - The Chiefs will move Brendan Daly to linebackers coach in 2022 after the previous coach (Matt House) left to become LSU's defensive coordinator and linebackers coach. This will be the first time that Daly has worked as a linebackers coach at any level after spending the majority of his career as a defensive line coach. He previously has worked as a defensive line coach at the NFL level for the St. Louis Rams (2009-2011), Minnesota Vikings (2012-2013), New England Patriots (2015-2018), and Kansas City Chiefs (2019-2021).

OLB Coach: Ken Flajole - Ken Flajole joined the Chiefs coaching staff in 2021. He's previously worked with linebackers at the NFL level for the Seattle Seahawks (2000), Carolina Panthers (2003-2008), Cleveland Browns (2013-2015), and Philadelphia Eagles (2016-2020). He's been coaching football since 1979 and was the St. Louis Rams' defensive coordinator from 2009 to 2011.

Defensive Backs Coach: Dave Merritt - Dave Merritt has been the Kansas City Chiefs' defensive backs coach since 2019. He has worked in a variety of defensive coaching roles at the NFL level for the New York Jets (2001-2003), New York Giants (2004-2017), and Arizona Cardinals (2018).

Safeties Coach: Donald D'Alesio - The Chiefs are mixing it up slightly with the secondary coaches, letting Sam Madison go (Cornerbacks/DB coach in 2021) to move Donald D'Alesio to safeties coach. D'Alesio spent the 2021 season as a defensive assistant for the Chiefs.

Enjoy this series? Be sure to check out all of the other 'Coaching Matters' team previews!

AFC North: Cleveland Browns, Pittsburgh Steelers, Baltimore Ravens, Cincinnati Bengals

AFC South: Houston Texans, Jacksonville Jaguars, Tennessee Titans, Indianapolis Colts

Follow Eli Grabanski on Twitter: @3li_handles

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