It’s not exactly a secret that the Kansas City Chiefs need a better running game, but fixing it or changing what the Chiefs are doing is another matter entirely. Very few productive suggestions have been offered, but Jesse Newell of The Athletic did a breakdown yesterday that offered plenty of intriguing thoughts and ideas.
Start with Andy Reid’s reluctance to take the ball out of the hands of quarterback Patrick Mahomes. This is understandable, but Newell used the model of Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen, who posed a similar set of issues until the Bills made a decision to feature running back James Cook more frequently.
From there, Newell went on to break down why RPOs and runs from the shotgun are generally ineffective. The Chiefs currently rank 28th in under-center runs, and early in Mahomes’ career teams had no idea how to defend RPOs, so there were plenty of explosive plays to be had.
Now there aren’t, so Newell checked in with former Chiefs offensive lineman Mitchell Schwartz about Kansas City’s running game.
“When your interior is Trey Smith, Creed Humphrey and Joe Thuney, and then now Kingsley Suamataia, you should be able to pound teams, kind of regardless of tackle play,” Schwartz said. “So is it running back personnel? Scheme? Coaching? It’s kind of surprising.
“I think a big issue is the run game is so shotgun-oriented, but then you think of all the two-high looks, and without a zone-read QB, you should have traditional numbers regardless. So I think there’s a lot of scheme elements that aren’t being utilized compared to the Miami’s and Chicago’s, and then the personnel is such that there’s zero explosive runs.”
Schwartz also had some intriguing thoughts about the Chiefs’ under-center running game.
“When they did go under center, it felt very picked and chosen,” Schwartz said. “Despite the good success rate (in part because it allowed the OL to get off the ball faster), it was seldom used, and teams didn’t care about the run and could easily sit on play action.”
The final answer Newell came up with is to retool the personnel. He identified tackle Josh Simmons as a future Pro Bowler, although that seems like a stretch given Simmons’ injuries and his time away from the team due to a personal issue.
He also recommended a new running back, which isn’t exactly front-page news. The Chiefs came close to trading for New York Jets running back Breece Hall at the deadline, and Newell also threw out running back Jeremiyah Love of Notre Dame if the Chiefs want to use a high draft pick to bolster their running game.
Regardless of the solution, change is coming. It’s finally time for the Chiefs to return to NFL reality and have a running game of sorts, and it will be interesting to see what choices they make to make it happen.