Kansas City Chiefs showed they can win games by running the ball

The Kansas City Chiefs have mostly been a passing offense since Patrick Mahomes took over, but that wasn’t the case in Week 6.

It’s been quite some time since the Kansas City Chiefs were able to turn things over to their run game and feel confident in doing so. That’s because Patrick Mahomes is known for his wizardry at the position and the Chiefs really haven’t had the talent at the running back position to merit handing it off every time.

That changed against the Bills on Monday afternoon, when the Chiefs took to the ground and in doing so, took control of the game. Kansas City ran the ball a total of 46 times for a whopping 245 yards and scored one rushing touchdown (Darrel Williams had the honor). Chiefs fans have seen this exact same strategy used against them so many times and it was nice to be on the other end of the rushing attack for once.

Clyde Edwards-Helaire was the one getting the bulk of the work, as he had 26 carries for 161 yards. Mahomes had 10 carries for 36 yards, Williams had six carries for 26 yards (and the touchdown as mentioned before), and even Darwin Thompson got in on the action with three carries for 17 yards.

Being able to run the ball adds a whole new element for this Kansas City Chiefs offense.

Now, it’s worth noting that the Bills weren’t able to stop the run game of the Chiefs. It won’t be this easy to run the ball moving forward, as we’ve seen in Weeks 2-5, but with Le’Veon Bell now joining the running back room, Chiefs fans have to be feeling pretty good about their run game moving forward.

When offenses run the ball, they control the clock and therefore, control the tempo of the game. A lot of teams do this to the Chiefs because it keeps Mahomes off the field while also gassing the defense. The Bills defense was clearly exhausted and it showed, as Edwards-Helaire continued to pop up big run after big run.

The weather probably played a big factor in why the Chiefs ran the ball so much, but we all know if KC tried this early on in the game and it didn’t work out, they’d have gotten away from doing so and turned to the passing game, as they so often do. Fortunately, the run game got off to a dominating start and the rest is history.

Whether or not the Kansas City Chiefs can run the ball like this against the Broncos next week in Denver is a mystery right now, but it’d sure be nice if this team could have both a lethal passing attack and a lethal ground game.