The Kansas City Chiefs have some big questions to answer, and the biggest one might be about Andy Reid.
Back when the Kansas City Chiefs were winning Super Bowls, one of the linchpins of their offensive approach was “in Reid we trust.” Coach Andy Reid has a Hall of Fame resume, and he formed a unique bond with quarterback Patrick Mahomes that resulted in unprecedented success and creative playmaking.
Now, not so much. Ted Nguyen of The Athletic just did a piece posing one key question for each team, and his question for the Chiefs was “Can Andy Reid evolve?”
Ouch. Questions like this seemed unthinkable as recently as a year ago, but that was before the Chiefs went into a tailspin that resulted in a 6-11 season.
The big reason for that, of course, was the injury to Mahomes, who is now rehabilitating from a serious knee injury. The Chiefs were struggling before Mahomes got hurt, but the extent of their downfall afterward was shocking.
Nguyen’s ranking echoed the popular sentiment that Reid needs to update his offense. His once-innovative motion schemes have been copied into near-irrelevance, and Reid is now considered behind the curve as an innovator.
The big problem, per Nguyen, is that the Chiefs haven’t adapted as defenses have trended toward two deep safeties and light boxes. The writer’s take on this was that “despite seeing the fourth-highest rate of light boxes (53.5 percent), [the Chiefs] ranked fifth in Cook Rate (57.8 percent), which measures how often teams pass the ball in neutral situations.”
Reid himself flagged this trait with some of his comments in minicamp and training camp. He noted that safeties were dropping back into deeper looks without respecting the run, which made sense given that the Chiefs basically didn’t have a running game as Mahomes led them in yardage gained on the ground for the first five weeks of the season.
Reid’s response to this is surprisingly old school. The Chiefs signed running back Kenneth Walker III to a huge contract after he won the Super Bowl MVP award, and before this season Walker was mostly considered a between-the-tackles bruiser who can get whatever yards are available up the middle.
But the Chiefs are looking for more from Walker. They’ve talked repeatedly about his ability to turn ordinary runs into ten-yard gains, and Walker showed the ability to bounce runs outside for chunk plays last season.
The Chiefs are also looking to feature Walker more in the screen game, which is a surprising development given that he’s never been considered a good receiver. It’s a shocking gamble that could shift the last part of Reid’s legacy, and offensively the Chiefs are betting their season on it.
