The performance of the Kansas City Chiefs offense was an ongoing enigma this year, and figuring out what was wrong became an ongoing task as the Chiefs continued to struggle. Jesse Newell of The Athletic was one of the beat writers who was closest to the team, and he offered up some intriguing thoughts on what needs to be fixed and what doesn’t.
Start with receiver Rashee Rice. Newell’s example of something that was broken was a play against the Los Angeles Chargers late in the season when Rice got lit up by Chargers safety Tony Jefferson with a big hit made it seem like he knew exactly what was coming on a slant route.
Quarterback Patrick Mahomes spoke about the issues recently when he gave an update on his ongoing rehab from a knee injury.
“You saw that this year, teams were very conscious of the plays that we’ve hit for a long time,” he said. So we have to find ways to counteract that.”
Coach Andy Reid, however, doesn’t necessarily see the offense as broken. His point is that the Chiefs still had a top-ten offense when all the performance parameters are taken into account, and Reid continued to harp on those one or two plays that went sideways in all those one-score games.
Reid is right about that, at least through the first 13 games, according to Newell. He listed a total of eight offensive stats, including offensive EPA, yards per play and average drive distance, and the Chiefs came out in the top ten in all of them.
In the final five weeks, though, the Chiefs fell apart. That was mostly due to the injury to Mahomes and other injuries to the offensive line, but Newell also cited a slow decline in the passing game that was also reflected in Mahomes’ postseason comments.
“I think offensively, we weren’t consistent enough throughout games,” Mahomes said.
The games in which he was consistent were the ones where he got the ball out quickly and on time. According to Pro Football Focus’ data, Mahomes passed to his first read on 83 percent, 79 percent, 83 percent and 82 percent of his throws in his first four games. For the final 11 weeks, though, he exceeded 71 percent on his first-read throw in just three other games.
Being healthy will solve a lot of the problems, but Reid also knows there’s more work to do. Linebackers and defensive backs didn’t bite on play-action due to the Chiefs anemic running game, and changes in both scheme and personnel could be coming.
The combination of Mahomes’ comments along with those from Reid suggest that big changes aren’t coming, especially given the stats Newell used. Chiefs fans may not like that the Kansas City offense will offer more of the same with some new wrinkles, but right now it looks like that’s what’s coming.