From the summer of 2020 through the most recent NFL season, Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy lived in a hotel with his family to protect his son, who is at high risk to get COVID-19, according to a report from Jenny Vrentas of Sports Illustrated. Eric III has cerebral palsy and respiratory issues, putting him in a high-risk group that would likely feel the worst of the respiratory disease.
Here are the details of his living situation, as laid out in the SI story.
To keep him safe, Bieniemy made this private sacrifice for the entirety of the 2020 season: He would stay in a hotel six nights out of the week and only return home on Fridays-but wearing double masks, keeping a distance and sleeping in the basement. “It’s been this way for the past six months,” Bieniemy said before Super Bowl LV. “It’s been a challenge.”
According to data from the Kansas City government’s website, Bieniemy and his family would have left for the hotel around the time cases were declining from a then-peak of 876 cases per week.
During the season, however, the number of weekly cases got a whole lot worse, skyrocketing as high as around 2,000 cases in a week on Nov. 8.
Though the season for the Chiefs did not end on the high that last year’s Super Bowl brought — Eric III got to hear his mom whisper play-by-play of that Super Bowl in Miami as the Chiefs got to victory — Bieniemy was able to keep his family safe during a pandemic that has caused over 530,000 deaths in this country.
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