When the Kansas City Chiefs assembled this team this offseason, the thought was that the offense would be more explosive.
By adding players like Hollywood Brown and Xavier Worthy alongside the developments of Isiah Pacheco and Rashee Rice, there was optimism that the added speed of Brown and Worthy would open more space downfield for vertical shots. It would also stretch the field to allow Rice and Pacheco to win with their physical running style.
The results have not been there for four weeks. I looked at the play-by-play data since 2023 to find how many explosive plays—a 15-plus yard run or 20-plus yard pass—the Chiefs have generated.
Here is the percentage of explosive offensive plays by run or pass:
Explosive plays by play type and season Year Play Type Plays Pct Rank 2023 >15 Yard Run 23 4.54% 7 2024 >15 Yard Run 1 0.96% 30 2023 >20 Yard Pass 64 7.85% 11 2024 >20 Yard Pass 10 7.75% 9(All NFL play-by-play data comes from NFLRVerse)
The passing offense has remained relatively stable year-over-year in explosive passing despite the league average explosive plays dropping (7.6% in 2023 vs. 7.1% in 2024). This is even without Brown, who was brought in to remedy this issue, in the lineup. Where the Chiefs struggle the most right now is generating explosive runs.
So far this season, the Chiefs have generated one run over 15 yards. Only the Dallas Cowboys and Las Vegas Raiders are worse; neither have had a single run over 15 yards yet.
This lack of explosiveness hasn't made the rushing offense bad — the Chiefs are currently second in the NFL in success rate running the ball, with 50.1% of their runs being successful. Last season, the Chiefs were 26th in rushing success rate, at 34.8%. The run blocking has been significantly better this year, but the Chiefs haven't been able to take advantage of that to get big runs.
What can be the cause of this? Some of it is the lack of yards after contact. Here are the Chiefs' four running backs and where they stack in yards after contact per attempt through four weeks:
Data per Pro Football Focus
The Chiefs running backs aren't taking good blocking and maximizing that with additional yards. All their running backs are good pile pushers and can create that extra one or two yards, but when asked to make a play in space and run in the open field, none of them have shown the capability of doing that. On top of this, their best open-field athlete — Isiah Pacheco — is now out for at least another month. Pacheco can be frustrating with some of his vision and agility limitations, but his speed can create huge runs when given the opportunity.
Without him, the Chiefs have no shot at an explosive run game.
Steele has come in and run hard, but he doesn't run with vision and typically takes exactly what is given to him. Perine has no explosive ability at this stage of his career. I thought Hunt looked fresh on Sunday, so there's a chance he can help there, but as of today, the Chiefs haven't been able to maximize what has otherwise been a dominant run game by not getting extra yards on the ground.
In the passing game, it's encouraging to see the Chiefs generate a similar number of explosive throws as they did last year. Even without Brown, it's been evident quickly that having Worthy on the field gives this offense a dimension it simply lacked last year.
Still, the promise of getting the ball downfield hasn't been entirely delivered. According to NextGen Stats, here is where Mahomes ranks in different passing categories:
So, even despite Worthy being able to catch a couple of bombs downfield, the rest of the passing game has been super short and conservative. They haven't been able to open up concepts downfield with anyone but Worthy.
But the passing offense has remained explosive for one reason: Rashee Rice.
A lot of his production is created by himself. Of 97 players with 15 or more targets, Rice is 82nd in average depth per target at 5.2. And yet, he's averaging 12 yards per reception and 3.16 yards per route run, with his fourth in the NFL. A lot of this comes with Rice after the catch. Rice averages 7.7 yards after a catch, which is 15th in the NFL. He's been a tackle-breaking machine, being fourth in the NFL in missed tackles forced with eight.
The Chiefs' offense has largely involved giving Rice the ball short and letting him use his explosive burst and size to barrel over defenders. His combination of speed and size makes him extremely hard to tackle, so the Chiefs built their offense around that ability.
Now that Rice is hurt, that ability from this offense is gone. For reference, here is every other pass-catcher the Chiefs have had this year and the amount of missed tackles they've forced:
Besides Rice, the Chiefs are getting almost nothing extra from their passing offense. Nobody is making a play in space or creating a big play out of nothing. The ball simply lands in their hands, and they're tackled right after. This makes playing offense hard; your quarterback and play-caller must be perfect every single play. Otherwise, you're not generating any offense.
This is not the Chiefs' fault. Brown, Rice, and Pacheco all being hurt at once is not something anyone ever could've foreseen.
However, with all of them out now, where do the Chiefs get explosive plays from? How can this offense pry anything open fast? Without their speed and stretch, what can they get out of their downfield offense? Can they create anything extra in the run game?
Down-to-down, this offense is very good. The run game looks great, and while Mahomes hasn't played his best football, he's been creating more magic than he's been given credit for. The problem is, everything is so hard because of the injuries.
The Chiefs have no margin of error because they're struggling to get anything significant created outside of Worthy deep shots. Moving forward, they're going to have to find a way to do that, or the offense is going to struggle to put up points week to week.
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