Kansas City Chiefs need to improve rushing attack

By Leigh Oleszczak | Sep 17, 2019

OAKLAND, CA - SEPTEMBER 15: LeSean McCoy #25 of the Kansas City Chiefs carries the ball against the Oakland Raiders during the second quarter of an NFL football game at RingCentral Coliseum on September 15, 2019 in Oakland, California. (Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images) /

When watching the Kansas City Chiefs top the Raiders 28-10 on Sunday, one big thing stood out: Where the heck was the run game? The rushing attack needs to be utilized more moving forward.

Coming into the 2019 season, nobody doubted what the Kansas City Chiefs could do through the air on offense. There was no reason to doubt that after Patrick Mahomes threw for 5,000 yards and 50 touchdowns in his first full year at the helm.

The biggest question mark on offense was, without a doubt, at running back.

The Chiefs appeared to be set there this time last year, but unfortunate circumstances led to the team having to lean on Damien Williams the rest of the way. Williams played well in 2018 and did enough to deserve an extension, but the questions coming into this season centered around if he could produce at a high-level for a full 16-game season.

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After drafting running back Darwin Thompson out of Utah State and later adding LeSean McCoy a week before the season started, the run game appeared to be in a better situation, especially if it was going to be a running back by committee, as head coach Andy Reid had alluded to.

Well, so far, the run game has been a mixed bag of tricks.

They did all right in week one, totaling 113 yards on the ground against the Jaguars. McCoy led the team in that one with 81 yards off of ten carries, but Williams had the lone rushing touchdown in that game.

This past week against the Raiders, the run game was non-existent. They had just 31 yards rushing off of 22 carries and couldn’t get anything going on the ground. Whether that was due to the absence of Eric Fisher or the Raiders game planning against the run (seems hard to believe considering what Mahomes is known for), it was an atrocious day for the Chiefs rushing attack.

Even though Mahomes is a freak of nature and can complete just about any pass imaginable, at some point, the Chiefs are going to have to win a game on the ground. The Patriots in particular are good at game planning against teams and taking away their strengths.

For the Chiefs, their strength is most definitely passing the ball and if (gotta get there first), it’s the Chiefs vs the Patriots in the AFC Championship Game, you better believe New England will force the Chiefs to run on them.

We’ve only seen this offense in two games so far, so it’s not entirely fair to jump to conclusions just yet, but it’s inexcusable to only have 31 yards on the ground when you have Damien Williams, Shady McCoy, and Darwin Thompson.

The run game did fine in week one, which shows they can be effective, but after the lack of production in week two, it is understandable why some fans might be concerned moving forward.

Hopefully this gets fixed in future games because while it’s fun to watch Patrick Mahomes air it out to the likes of Sammy Watkins and Travis Kelce, and most recently Demarcus Robinson and Mecole Hardman, the Chiefs can’t rely on Mahomes doing it all. At some point, they’ll be dared to run against a team and hopefully they’re ready to run when that time does come.

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