Texans request to interview Eric Bieniemy, but will have to wait until Chiefs' season is over

The Houston Texans are late to the party, but at least they showed up.

Houston has officially requested to interview Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy for its vacant head coaching position, NFL Network Insider Ian Rapoport reported.

Every other team with a head coaching vacancy — excluding Philadelphia, which created its vacancy with Monday’s firing of Doug Pederson — has completed an interview with Bieniemy, but Houston waited until Tuesday to extend the request. Because of this, the Texans will have to wait until Kansas City either loses or until after the Super Bowl (whichever comes first) to interview Bieniemy, per the league’s anti-tampering policy, under which the initial interview window for Bieniemy closed Sunday, NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero reported.

Houston essentially launched its coaching search once it landed on a general manager, starting the process over the past few days when Nick Caserio was hired as GM, Rapoport reported. The Texans had previously interviewed veteran coaches Jim Caldwell and Marvin Lewis, who both spent 2020 out of the NFL (Lewis was co-defensive coordinator at Arizona State).

Bieniemy is seen as one of the top head-coaching candidates in this cycle while serving as offensive coordinator under Andy Reid in Kansas City, home of the league’s No. 1 offense in yards gained per game and the defending Super Bowl champions. Houston’s initial decision to not request an interview with Bieniemy mystified many, as he’d been a quick request of every other team searching for a new head coach, is more than qualified for consideration, and a pairing with Deshaun Watson makes plenty of sense.

Now they’ll have to wait potentially as long as four weeks to sit down with the popular candidate, depending on how far the Chiefs go in this postseason.

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