KC Chiefs: Chad Henne considered average backup quarterback

Chad Henne is slated to be the backup quarterback for the KC Chiefs in 2020 and is in the middle of the pack as far as QB2s go.

Timo Riske of Pro Football Focus ranked every backup quarterback in the NFL heading into the 2020 season and had Chad Henne of the Kansas City Chiefs at 17th, which seems fair.

Chiefs fans haven’t really gotten to see Henne in action since he signed with the Chiefs prior to the 2018 season. He appeared in just one game in 2018 – a blowout against the Raiders – and missed all of 2019 due to injury.

The Chiefs did have to rely on their backup quarterback for three games last year, but it wasn’t Henne at that point in time due to his injury. Instead, Matt Moore was trusted to take over the offense for a few weeks while Patrick Mahomes was recovering from injury.

Moore did a nice job and isn’t the backup this year and initially the Chiefs had only gone with Henne. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, however, teams are bringing in more quarterbacks than usual and as such, the Chiefs brought Moore back.

Ranking Chad Henne 17th is fair since he hasn’t started a game since 2014 and has appeared in just one game for the KC Chiefs.

If Mahomes were to miss time this season, fans wouldn’t really know what to expect from Henne honestly. To be fair though, it was the same situation with Matt Moore last year and Andy Reid was able to tailor the offense more (no pun intended) to Moore’s skill sets. He’d do the same thing for Henne if the situation called for it.

As for the rest of the backup quarterback list, the AFC West only had one team in the top half of the rankings. The Raiders have the second best backup in the league with Marcus Mariota sitting behind Derek Carr on the depth chart. KC Kingdom’s own Cullen Jekel predicted that Mariota would eventually be the starter for Las Vegas this season.

The Chargers sit at 16th on the list with Justin Herbert, as it’s a near certainty that Tyrod Taylor will be the starter to begin the season. Similar to the Raiders though, it’s possible that Herbert passes Taylor on the depth chart, as the Chargers did spend the sixth overall pick on the Oregon quarterback.

Denver has the worst backup quarterback situation in the division, as they signed Jeff Driskel this offseason to sit behind Drew Lock. While Lock showed potential last season, if something does happen and he has a rough go of it, Driskel isn’t a very good insurance policy and it’d have made more sense for the Broncos to have brought in a more experienced veteran to have behind Lock.

While the Kansas City Chiefs don’t have the best backup quarterback, they have the BEST quarterback in the league, which is the most important thing here. Having a reliable backup signal caller did save the Chiefs’ season in 2019 and having someone who can step in and run the offense efficiently is critical, especially for a team like the Chiefs.

Where would you rank Chad Henne on the list of backup quarterbacks?