Chiefs Running Game: A Fly in the Ointment

Laddie Morse

The Kansas City Chiefs running game isn’t close to being functional. Sorry to say it but, if their running game remains as is, they likely won’t be getting into the Super Bowl they covet. Is Patrick Mahomes an incredible player? Sure is. Yes, he absolutely is. However, “it takes a village” to win a Super Bowl, and in this case, that means having a potent rushing attack to complement their incredible passing game. Anyone have visions of Damien Williams holding the ball in the air as he glides over the goal line in Super Bowl LIV?

A few months back I introduced the idea that the Chiefs running backs receptions should be thought of as running plays, because as much as HC Andy Reid likes to throw the ball, he also recognizes the need to include his RBs in the passing game, game-plan. While that plan works sometimes, many other times it makes the Chiefs Offense one-dimensional. It also makes the game planning a case of… “Andy Reid’s way, or the highway.”

Passing Rushing Imbalance

On Sunday evening, Patrick Mahomes was his everlasting wonderful self and if not for that, the Chiefs would have lost, to a very determined Titans crew. Let’s break down the RB stats from Sunday evening game versus the Titans.

• The Chiefs had 19 running plays, but 6 of those were by Patrick Mahomes, and not designed as running plays.

• That means, the Chiefs actually had 13 running plays, by design.

• On the other hand, if you subtract the 8 passing catches the RBs had, and subtract those from the 43 passing plays of Patrick Mahomes, you come up with 35 completed passes (to those who are not RBs) and if you add those 8 pass catches to the 13 running plays, you come up with 22 runs/pass catches, by RBs.

• It’s just way off balanced when you consider that Mahomes — if that was the case — had 35 passes while the RBs had 21 plays of their own. So, even if you did count those RB catches as running plays, the Passing game would still out distance the Chiefs running game by 61% for the passing game and 39% for the Rushing Attack.

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Running Back by Committee

No matter how you slice up the running game plays, the Chiefs have almost always shared the running plays between the men in the RB room. The one caveat to that was Kareem Hunt.

• In 2013 and 2014 the Chiefs had Jamaal Charles in his last two seasons as a Chief. They also drafted Knile Davis in 2013 so they were breaking him in with the idea he’d take over for JC at some point. They also had Spencer Ware but didn’t pair him with Charcandrick West until the next season.

• So, in 2015 they had Spencer Ware and in 2016 Charcandrick West began to ascend.

• No RB was highly effective until they drafted Kareem Hunt in the 3rd round (the same year they drafted Mahomes at pick #10) in 2017. Hunt made the Pro Bowl his rookie year in K.C., but then lied to the powers that be about his involvement in a conflict he had with a woman and so in 2018, when a video surfaced online showing that he had kicked her and that meant he also lied about that, it was the end for him in K.C..

Even though the Chiefs drafted Clyde Edwards-Helaire in the first round following their Super Bowl victory, he hasn’t been the kind of back who could take the reigns and run with it. In two and a half years he gained 1, 613 yards, averaging 52 yards per game. Sometimes good, but not consistently good enough.

Career Extensions

Many teams use a Running Back By Committee (RBBC) because they reason that it will elongate the career of one of their star RBs. That pre-supposes that you have a star RB who’s career you’d like to sustain. I don’t think the Chiefs are in that situation. One of the major reasons the Chiefs selected CEH is that he had a high percentage (22.1%) of his carries coming on pass receptions.

The Ole One-Two Punch

Some teams have multiple RBs with very different skill levels: like one may be fast and another may be huge and can be used to ram the ball into the end zone at the goal line. The only player with that kind of resume, happens to be a RB who hasn’t gotten one carry so far this season and that would be Ronald Jones II and he stands at 5-foot-11, and weighing in at 205 lbs.. While Jerick McKinnon has been the veteran speedster of the group.

The rookie Isiah Pacheco has been seen running directly into a tackler, so he may not end up being the one-back system answer for K.C..

One Back System Answer

Yesterday I posed this question to our bloggers:

“The question is…..

Would the KC OL look better with Derrick Henry running behind them?

The obvious answer to me is H*LL YES! So then the question is…

Why isn’t Veach and Reid and company looking for a guy like, Jonathan Taylor or Joe Mixon or Austin Ekeler?

They each could have been had by the Chiefs in the second round or in some cases later, much later. In the case of Ekeler, as a UDFA.”

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That may be the first time I have ever quoted myself, but it’s probably not going to be the last. As one of our illustrious bloggers likes to point out, the Chiefs could have drafted Jonathan Taylor instead of Clyde Edwards-Helaire. Taylor could have been drafted by K.C. and was taken 9 picks after CEH was drafted. The point is — it’s not a woulda-coulda-shoulda situation — but Taylor is a Pro Bowl RB who was not wanted in K.C. for some strange reason, one who would have taken the one-back-system and improved on it. I could see his value… so why could the Chiefs not see it? The answer to that is… they did see it and they didn’t want a great back to pair with Mahomes. That makes play calling messy.

Now, you might be saying, why in the world would Reid and Veach not want a great back to pair with Mahomes? Another answer is –> the game results vs the Titans. Mahomes has shown the ability to take over a game and put the team in his back. So, why mess with that formula?

Running Backs or the Offensive Line?

I may not be much of an Orlando Brown Jr. fan right now, but the problems with the offensive line go way beyond just him when considering success in the running game. Early in the year, I thought the problem with the RBs was that they didn’t sync up well in terms of timing with the OL. IOW, the holes were being opened too quickly and the RBs weren’t getting to those holes on time, and it didn’t matter if it was CEH or Pacheco or McKinnon. Like David Bell, I think the problem may lie with the way the blocking assignments are being handled. David Bell says,

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“Reid’s scheme is too complex and [has] too many

moving parts in his zbs (zone blocking scheme].”

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From play to play, the blocking schemes that Reid calls for are just as Bell says, too complex. If it can be simplified then the chances of being successful go up significantly.

Plus, like many, I’m waiting for Ronald Jones II to get his turn. Back in March, right after Ronald Jones was signed by the Chiefs RoJo said:

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“I think they fit very well…Talking to Coach Reid and EB, I think my skillset translates perfectly. I’m excited…In Andy Reid’s system, everybody is gonna eat.”

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He must be starving by now. I’m sure that’s why he asked for a trade, or a release, prior to the trade deadline. It’s hard to tell if RoJo has been in Reid’s doghouse, but you can’t help but wonder based on the fact that he hasn’t been active for even one game so far this year. The other possibility is, Reid is saving RoJo in case another RB is hurt. With the Chiefs in the middle of a 17+ game season, it seems reasonable to infer that Reid is saving RoJo for later in the year when he needs his RBs to be healthy and ready to go hard, much as he used McKinnon last season. Jerick had 62 yards rushing during the 2021 regular season, then had 150 yards rushing in the playoffs. Could Reid have the same plans for RoJo?

If that is the plan for Ronald Jones, it seems unfair to keep him on the roster just so Reid can use him in the playoffs. Every player has a shelf life in the NFL, especially RBs, so Reid’s plans for players may be part of the problem the Chiefs are facing this year with their RBs. What do you think?

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Laddie Morse — ArrowheadOne

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