The Kansas City Chiefs have looked like a juggernaut in the first half of the 2020s but they appeared vulnerable during the 2024 season. The Chiefs had enough in the tank to reach the Super Bowl for the third straight season, but they couldn’t take home another Lombardi Trophy after losing to the Philadelphia Eagles.
There were plenty of scapegoats after the season from an offensive line that allowed Patrick Mahomes to get thrown around in the Super Bowl to a receiving core that was woefully short of expectations. But one area the Chiefs wanted to improve was the running game.
The Chiefs were one of the worst rushing offenses in the NFL last season, ranking 22nd with 105.3 yards per game and 17th with 15 rushing touchdowns. The performance of Isiah Pacheco and Kareem Hunt prompted Kansas City to take a flier on former San Francisco 49ers running back Elijah Mitchell, but his odds of making the roster don’t look great after the team’s minicamp.
Isiah Pacheco’s Performance Has Elijah Mitchell on Thin Ice After Chiefs Minicamp
Mitchell came over after a big rookie season, followed by three disappointing years in San Francisco. The sixth-round pick out of Louisiana ran for 963 yards and five touchdowns to put himself on the map in 2021, but had just 120 carries for 560 yards and four touchdowns over the next two seasons. Mitchell didn’t even take the field last season due to a hamstring injury and signed a one-year, $2.5 million contract with the Chiefs during free agency.
The situation appeared to be a great one for Mitchell to walk into. Pacheco battled through a tough year, running for 310 yards and a touchdown on 83 carries after fracturing his fibula in Week 2, and Hunt had a yeoman’s effort for 728 yards and seven touchdowns in relief. The combination wasn’t good enough, and Mitchell’s big-play ability figured to fill a void. But then Pacheco showed up to minicamp and drew the praise of Andy Reid.
“He looks good physically, he looks real good,” Reid said during OTAs. “He’s put on a couple pounds of good weight, he’d gotten himself down there a little bit last year and leaned up, but man, I think he looks tremendous right now.”
Comments like these should be taken with a grain of salt during “best shape of his life” season. But Pacheco’s track record indicates that his job might not be up for grabs. Over his first two years, Pacheco ran for 1,765 yards and 12 touchdowns but he also had a 53.6% success rate, which indicates how frequently a ball carrier gets 40% of yards needed on first down, 60% of yards needed on second down and 100% of yards needed on third and fourth down.
With Pacheco entering a contract year, it’s not inconceivable to think that he can return to his old form. Hunt also has declared himself ready to go for training camp and seventh-round rookie Breshard Smith has also drawn rave reviews during the offseason program.
Put everything together and Mitchell just hasn’t stood out, which stands as an obstacle toward making Kansas City’s roster in the coming weeks.