Chiefs Roster: Will the running game return to its 2022 form?

Heading into the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs’ season, I’m persevering with my “10 Greatest Questions” sequence. Let’s think about what the group’s working sport may appear like in 2024.

Throughout an NFL group’s run of success, its identification can shift time and again. Adjustments in personnel and training workers — and, after all, how groups attempt to beat it — will alter its method.

This has definitely been true for the Chiefs. When quarterback Patrick Mahomes took it over in 2018, the group’s passing offense felt unstoppable. Combining Mahomes with two first-ballot Corridor of Famers like tight finish Travis Kelce and vast receiver Tyreek Hill — together with Professional Bowl tackles resembling Eric Fisher and Mitchell Schwartz and the good offensive thoughts of head coach Andy Reid — allowed the offense to overpower the league for 3 full seasons. No one may discover a constant approach to cease Kansas Metropolis’s passing sport.

Ultimately, although, NFL groups will catch up. By 2021, defenses had been utilizing two-high security shells and quarters-based coverages to remove the Chiefs’ vertical passing sport. (It didn’t assist that new tackles Orlando Brown Jr. and Andrew Wylie additionally lacked the go safety prowess of Fisher and Schwartz, making deep dropbacks harder).

However these defensive changes left lighter packing containers up entrance, which offered a gap for the working sport. Reid and Mahomes had been by no means going to function a run-first offense, however the specter of a dominant working sport would assist the offense evolve.

So Reid got here into 2022 with an ideal plan to ascertain his working sport. Hill was traded to the Miami Dolphins. Small, vertically-based vast receivers gave approach to greater, blocking wideouts like JuJu Smith-Schuster and Marquez Valdes-Scantling. These adjustments — mixed with placing extra tight ends on the sphere — allowed the offense to change into far more balanced. The run-pass choices had been diminished, which made the run ideas far more downhill and below heart. That suited the offensive line significantly better, because it may assault ahead.

In 2022, the Chiefs didn’t have a run-based offense — however after they put it entrance and heart, it modified video games. In Week 11’s matchup with the Los Angeles Chargers (and in Tremendous Bowl LVII in opposition to the Philadelphia Eagles), Kansas Metropolis started the second half with a dominating, bodily working sport. It modified the tenor of the sport and received the offense into rhythm.

However in 2023 — with the same offensive construction — the offense fell aside. It dropped from first to fifteenth in factors scored and first to ninth in yards gained.

To make certain, the group had issues with its vast receivers. That received probably the most consideration. However what flew below the radar was how a lot the shortage of a working sport impacted the offense. The Chiefs’ working sport fell from tenth to 18th in anticipated factors added per play (EPA) and from sixth to twenty sixth in success fee. And not using a sturdy working sport, the offense couldn’t maintain drives (or end them within the crimson zone) and even flip to it when the passing sport wasn’t working.

Why did this occur? A few of it got here from worse play on the offensive inside. However blocking in different areas was a big drawback. Changing Brown and Wylie with Donovan Smith and Jawaan Taylor — each of them below-average run blockers — diminished the drive of the downhill working sport. The group struggled to seek out runs that may match both deal with, since each would fail to dispace defenders by whiffing on blocks.

The blocking from tight ends was additionally worse. Kelce didn’t make an actual affect till the playoffs. Even at his greatest, Noah Grey is just a median run blocker — and in 2023, Blake Bell’s blocking fell off a cliff. This saved the Chiefs from calling the pulling runs they’d used efficiently in prior years — just because their tight ends couldn’t deal with defensive ends one-on-one.

Going into 2024, nevertheless, there will probably be adjustments. At left deal with, Smith will give approach to Kingsley Suamataia, who tasks to be considerably higher as a run blocker. The second-round rookie has unbelievable dimension and athleticism. For his dimension, he pulls nicely. He can transfer in area — and has sufficient energy to maul the entire line of scrimmage. As soon as he’s accustomed to the league’s pace, he will probably be a considerably higher run blocker than Smith was.

Rookie tight finish Jared Wiley needs to be an improve over Bell, too. He has the suitable dimension and size — and flashed a good quantity of run-blocking chops as a Y-tight finish in faculty. Coping with the energy of NFL gamers will probably be an adjustment, however I’m nonetheless assured he’ll be an enchancment over Bell.

So the place will Kansas Metropolis’s working sport be this season? Will it’s nearer to the 2022 model or 2023 model? Will the group be capable of name runs that go well with their tackles — notably Taylor — that can assist its working sport? Will the inside offensive line return to its 2022 kind?

I don’t doubt the Chiefs’ passing sport will probably be higher. The pace and explosiveness the group has added means defenses will run man protection much less typically. That may add an offensive risk the group hasn’t had since 2020.

Nevertheless it nonetheless received’t be an extremely proficient group of vast receivers. So for the offense to get again to the highest, the working sport should return. Whereas I imagine the Chiefs have the personnel to do it, they’ll nonetheless must show they will get their offense again to its potential.