The Kansas City Chiefs had a different kind of season this year, and the devil was definitely in the details when it comes to some of the unique failures the team experienced. Jesse Newell of The Athletic picked out some of the most important ones, in a recent piece, and they’re well worth exploring.
Start with the Chiefs striking out on drafting a running back. According to Newell, Kansas City was going to address this need in the fourth round of the draft last year, anticipating that running back like Trevor Etienne, Woody Marks and Dylan Sampson would still be on the board.
Until they weren’t. Etienne went to the Carolina Panthers, Marks ended up with the Houston Texans, and the Cleveland Browns selected Sampson, so the Chiefs pivoted to take receiver Jalen Royals.
Another issue Newell picked out was the signing of corner Kristian Fulton to a two-year, $15 million deal. The idea was to shift cornerback Trent McDuffie to the slot, but when Fulton went down with a knee injury, that never happened.
Fulton was excellent when he finally returned to the lineup for the final three weeks, and he represents a strength going forward. The Chiefs’ pass rush struggled down the stretch, and McDuffie occasionally looked overmatched out on the boundary.
The third issue Newell chose was on special teams, which were a big problem for the Chiefs this season. Kansas City had used undrafted free agent Nikko Remigio as their return man in 2024, but part of the reason the Chiefs drafted running back Brashard Smith in the final round was to get some big plays in the return.
That didn’t happen, either. The Chiefs were going to give Smith a tryout as a punt returner in training camp, but when he dislocated one of his fingers, that tryout never happened.
Shortly after that Smith muffed a punt, and that was when special teams coach Dave Toub made the call to go back to Remigio, thus limiting the return game going forward. The Chiefs ended up ranking in the 20s on kick returns, which will need to change next year, although Smith did have a 44-yard punt return in Kansas City’s Christmas night loss to the Denver Broncos.
All of this might sound like minutia, but it especially matters when you’re consistently losing one-score games. The Chiefs have a lot of fixes to implement for next year, but sometimes it’s the smallest ones that end up having the biggest impact.