KC Chiefs are a rushing team masquerading as a passing team

The KC Chiefs appear to be a team who relies more on throwing the ball, but that simply isn’t the case.

When I first was introduced to the team that would become my life long passion known as the Kansas City Chiefs, Alex Smith was taking the snaps, and he ran a nice clean yet conservative offense that was extremely strong in ball security. Unfortunately some might have called it dull to watch and that it was the Toyota Corolla of NFL offenses.

Then, in 2018, enter Patrick Mahomes and that good old reliable Corolla transformed into the Mahomesian Falcon. Every game after that was a dog fight right out of Star Wars. For two years this trend would continue, turning the meat and potatos Chiefs offense of 2016-2017 into the most prolific passing offense in the league.

In his rookie season of 2018, Mahomes wracked up 50 touchdown passes and over 5,000 passing yards, winning him MVP accolades in the process. In 2019, Mahomes would slow down ever so slightly, throwing for 4,031 yards and 26 touchdowns, but winning Super Bowl LIV and Super Bowl MVP in the process.

Now, another crazy occurrence to add to the year that is 2020 – The KC Chiefs are a rushing team disguised as a passing team.

First and formost, Mahomes is a gunslinger and that is how we all know and love him. In this year’s draft, the Chiefs selected LSU running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire with the No. 32 pick, and a totally new dimension was added to an already formidable Chiefs offense.

That is not to say that the Chiefs have not had a good running game before the drafting of Edwards-Helaire. Kareem Hunt was a freak of nature, but the explosiveness was short lived due to Hunt’s off the field issues. Since then, the Chiefs have had Damien Williams, who has been good and maybe even great at times, but the team still relied heavily on the arm of Mahomes to bail them out when they were down 24 points.

This year has seen much more of an emergence of the running game, which has been facilitated almost single handedly by CEH. As a result, Mahomes’ prolific passing ability has almost taken a backseat.

Don’t misunderstand me — Mahomes is still a prolific and incredibly efficient passer, and Chiefs Kingdom is so very grateful, but for the first time in nearly two years, the Chiefs have a reliable run game to lean on, and they are leaning on it more and more.

In Week 1, the Chiefs offense rushed for 166 yards with a whopping 138 yard chunk of that belonging to Edwards-Helaire. During a soggy game against the Bills in Week 6, the Chiefs absolutely jammed it down the Bills’ throats to the tune of 245 yards with 161 of that belonging to the rookie out of LSU.

It is true that if you pull the stats for each individual game, the rushing yards are eclipsed by the passing yardage in all games but one — that game being against the Bills — but it bares mentioning that a couple of those games were situations of playing from behind which necessitates passing (the Patriots and Chargers games). A couple of others were against other high octane offenses such as the Ravens, or in a neck and neck game such as the Raiders game.

The New York Jets knew that former teammate Le’Veon Bell was going to try his best to have a huge game against them, so they focused on stuffing the run all together. As a result, they held the Chiefs to a season low of only 50 yards rushing. They probably wish they hadn’t done that though, because that just gave Mahomes an excuse to draw his guns once more and blast the Jets for a total of 416 yards and five touchdowns.

Before the Jets game, the Chiefs were sixth in the league in rushing and not even in the top ten in passing. Some might see this as a negative, I see it as quite the opposite. For the last two seasons, the Chiefs have relied too heavily on Mahomes’ arm and his prolific talent to bail them out of tight situations. Being the nice guy that he is, Mahomes has obliged, but it is nice to be able to watch Mahomes hand the ball off and then see CEH jam it down the throat of the opposing defense.

It was believed that with the acquisition of Bell, the running attack would become even stronger. Bell has been rather quiet in his first two games as a Chief, but he’s learning a new offense, so that’s understandable.

Let me say this again — I’m in no way saying that Mahomes isn’t the driving force behind this Chiefs offense now. What I am saying is that it is a disguise, a façade,  being used to hide the fact that the Chiefs offense is quietly developing into one of the most sturdy running teams in the league.

Mahomes will always be Mahomes, and we wouldn’t want it any other way. Rather than needing Mahomes to put on a fireworks display to make sure the Chiefs win every game, now the ball can be handed off with confidence, knowing that the quick yet strong illusiveness of Clyde Edwards-Helaire is going to get the job done.

The Chiefs offense is still the Legion of Zoom — or the Mahomesian Falcon — but now it is something even better; It is a transformer that can shift and change at a moments notice, from the Mahomesian Falcon to a high speed BMW, capable of grinding out a win, while busting through any obstacles put in its path, and hardly ever leaving the ground.