Can the Chiefs Fix Their Rushing Problem in the Draft?
In case you haven’t heard over the last season, elite running backs are hot in the NFL right now. Young RBs in their first few seasons, like Bijan Robinson and Jahmyr Gibbs, have completely revamped the offensive possibilities for their teams. Meanwhile, established stars moving to new teams, like Saquon Barkley and Derrick Henry, have restored the importance of the run game to playoff teams and the popular consciousness alike. Truly, the elevation of rushing offense has brought new hope to some middling franchises and the pinnacle of success to championship contenders.
So, with all that in mind, why do the Kansas City Chiefs, famed for their dynamic offense under Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid, have such a pedestrian running game? The numbers don’t lie; the Chiefs’ run game has been mediocre at the best of times over the last several years. In fact, looking at each season over the last five years, the highest the Chiefs have ranked in total rushing yards/YPG league wide was 16th, literally middle of the pack. Again, that’s the best they’ve done, coming in at 22nd this most recent season, the worst they’ve placed in the 2020s.
An obvious question to ask is “Why?” Why has a team with such a famously dynamic offensive identity been unable to elevate its lackluster ground game? The most obvious answer to that question is that, frankly, they didn’t need it to be successful. The Reid-Mahomes Chiefs are famous and phenomenal based on what they can do through the air, not what they can get on the ground. It’s ok to have an unremarkable rushing attack when you rank as the number one passing offense in the entire league, which is exactly what they were in 2020 and 2022. You don’t need elite rushing production when you have the best passing in football, you just need the run game to not be a detriment, to constantly be described as “decent,” “just ok,” or “fine.”
That’s perfectly sound and logical, provided you stay the top dog of passing in the NFL, which the Kansas City Chiefs did not. While the narrative around Mahomes’ down year has been overblown, there is no arguing that both the franchise QB and the overall passing attack around him this past season have shrunken from their best days. Despite ranking sixth in both pass completions and attempts league-wide, the Chiefs ranked outside of the top ten on both total passing yardage and receiving touchdowns. Looking further at the data shows the Chiefs had the third shortest of all teams’ longest completed passes, ranked tied for 23rd in yards per attempt, and tied for 25th in yards per completion.
It’s not like all of this is due to the Chiefs simply neglecting the run game and allowing their passing game to simmer down. For years, defenses that played the Chiefs have dedicated themselves to preventing the type of explosive plays that became synonymous with Kansas City back in the Tyreek Hill days. Faced with these defenses and recognizing the constantly changing strengths and weaknesses of the KC receiving corps, it is no wonder that Reid and company adopted a West Coast offensive system that prioritized short, precise routes to slowly matriculate down the field. These shorter, more patient, take-what-the-defense-gives plays were traditionally in the realm of the rushing game. A logical question that the Chiefs’ offensive staff must have asked and very quickly answered when tackling short-yardage situations is, “Do we give the ball to our running back, or do we keep it in the hands of Patrick Mahomes and have him look for Travis Kelce or another stud receiver?” It seems like a pretty easy question to answer to me.
The Chiefs have looked to the draft in the recent past to boost their run game. Clyde Edwards-Helaire was the team’s very first pick late in the first round of the 2020 NFL Draft, but he never developed into the bell-cow running back that the Chiefs were hoping for. Kareem Hunt looked to be a staple of the Chiefs’ offense for years to come following his stellar rookie year with the team back in 2017, but off-the-field issues saw him leave the squad, only to come back this past season and lead the team in both rushing yards and rushing TDs. Only time will tell how close he will come back to the greatness the team saw all those years ago. Most recently, Isiah Pacheco was a seventh-round steal in 2022, becoming the team’s leading rusher in both his rookie year and 2023, coming the closest to a 1,000-yard rushing season of any Chief in the 2020s. However, a broken fibula sidelined Pacheco for most of last season, and his productivity since returning has declined dramatically.
With a disappointing overall run game, combined with uncertainty around the future productivity of their existing running backs and a regressing passing game that can’t carry the offense by itself anymore, it seemed incredibly likely that the Chiefs would look to this year’s NFL Draft for the shot in the arm they needed. That likelihood became a near certainty when, just this morning, Chiefs general manager Brett Veach called this year’s draft eligible running back class “probably the deepest position group in the draft” and that there was a “good likelihood” that the Chiefs would select one in the first five rounds of the upcoming draft. While Ashton Jeanty isn’t going to find himself wearing a Chiefs hat on draft night, the abundant depth of the upcoming RB class just might produce a prospect to bring the Chiefs back to the good old rushing days of Jamaal Charles, Larry Johnson, and Priest Holmes. Personally, I’d love another Christian Okoye.
