Despite Andy Reid’s brilliance and Patrick Mahomes’s wizardry, the Kansas City Chiefs have a red-zone headache on their hands. And it might have much to do with one of the least ballyhooed veterans of their dynastic run.
The slog reached new lows Monday night as the Chiefs casually navigated up and down the field against the New Orleans Saints only to run out of ideas and execution in the red zone (where they were 1 for 5 entering the fourth quarter). Reid resorted to a wildcat call for tight end Travis Kelce late in the game — taking the ball out of the hands of arguably the greatest quarterback in NFL history — to finally nudge the ball over the goal line and put the game away on red-zone trip No. 6. Pretty or easy, it was not.
And it made the absence of former red-zone dervish Jerick McKinnon all the more profound. Recent injuries to feature back Isiah Pacheco and top wide receiver Rashee Rice have compounded Kansas City’s problems in the red zone, where defenses can clamp down and focus on key players. But you can draw a line of demarcation in the Chiefs’ precipitous drop in efficiency right at Week 12 of last season, the first game McKinnon missed with a groin injury. The running back’s subsequent surgery would limit him to 69 offensive snaps and just three games down the stretch in the Chiefs’ Super Bowl run.
From the time McKinnon arrived in Kansas City as a low-level signing in 2021 until he suffered the injury in November, Reid’s red-zone offense was the envy of the NFL. Despite getting to the red zone more than anyone else, the Chiefs led the NFL in efficiency, scoring touchdowns on 64.4 percent of their trips (including the postseason). But since Week 12 of last season, playoffs included, Kansas City has converted on just 45.9 percent of its red-zone trips, 30th in the league over that 16-game sample.
“I don’t think it’s as simple as McKinnon getting hurt,” said a defensive coordinator who has faced the Chiefs in that span. “It’s not just one thing. … But he was a playmaker for them in tight spaces. He could win for them on gadget plays and broken plays. I think that’s what they had in mind when they signed [similarly small and agile Marquise] Hollywood Brown.”
Brown got hurt in the summer and hasn’t played a snap for the Chiefs, and his arrival came on the heels of another slight but versatile pass catcher who may have filled the McKinnon role, Kadarius Toney, finally being booted out after months of untrustworthy football, running the wrong routes, dropping easy catches and continually coming up, well, small.
With all the star power in Kansas City, it’s easy to overlook a third-down back. But from his arrival until his Week 11 injury last season, McKinnon (listed generously at 5-foot-9) was third on the team in red-zone touches (with just three fewer than Kelce). He was third among non-quarterbacks in red-zone first downs, and he caught 12 touchdown passes on just 27 targets. Mahomes had a rating of 125.6 when throwing to him in the red zone, best among any Chiefs receiver with more than five targets.
Handicapping the race to land hulking Raiders wideout Davante Adams is all the rage in NFL circles, but keep an eye on the Chiefs targeting a smaller body type before the Nov. 5 trade deadline. Perhaps Clyde Edwards-Helaire can fill the void as he works back from a long-term absence, but Reid finding a scatback/wide receiver to plug into McKinnon’s red-zone role feels like a priority. Kansas City has scored touchdowns on just three of its past nine red-zone trips, and the Chiefs are second in the NFL with four red-zone turnovers since McKinnon first got injured.
The drama isn’t over for the Jets
Aaron Rodgers has tried to distance himself from the firing of Robert Saleh, but people around the league aren’t buying it, and I have reported for quite some time about the distaste the quarterback and owner Woody Johnson had for the now former coach.
Johnson nearly fired Saleh multiple times in the past, and it was a concern that any new coach would also upset the offensive coaching staff — and thus anger the mercurial quarterback — that kept ownership from firing him after a poor 2023 season. Johnson suggested, after finally letting Saleh go, that the conversation he had with Rodgers the night before doing so (and on the heels of a six-hour flight back from the team’s inevitable debacle against the Vikings in London) did not involve the coach whatsoever. No one is buying that, either, and rival executives are skeptical that the change will alter much about this broken quarterback and offense.
“Firing Saleh isn’t going to fix the quarterback,” the defensive coordinator said.
Said NFL analyst Brian Baldinger: “I don’t know if changing the coordinator or play caller is going to fix their run game. … If they don’t fix that, I don’t care who calls the plays.”
“It’s so predictable, so predictable,” said one NFL general manager, who is not permitted to speak publicly about other teams’ personnel decisions. “We saw that coming. It’s so obvious that the quarterback has all the power in that organization. They aren’t fooling anyone. They are screwed moving forward. Rodgers has a terrible contract. They have major cap problems. The next GM there is walking into a disaster.”
Three executives I spoke with this week, including some who are in the Adams chase themselves, believe the Jets are even more likely now to land him. The desperation is overt. Maybe the Raiders get that (high) second-round pick out of them after all.
The Deshaun Watson debacle
The Browns have produced 28 offensive touchdowns during the 17 games in which Deshaun Watson has played quarterback for them. They are somehow averaging a league-worst 3.8 yards per play and converting a league-worst 18 percent of their third downs.
So where is this utterly ridiculous situation going? “Two words,” the GM said. “Bobby Bonilla.”
He was alluding, of course, to the former baseball star who signed a long-term buyout of his deal with the New York Mets, which is celebrated by some on the day Bonilla annually gets paid. The football people in Cleveland want to go to backup Jameis Winston, but it’s a non-starter given Watson’s ironclad contract guarantees unless and until owner Jimmy Haslam gives the okay. With the team possibly heading toward a top-five pick, at some point the billionaire is going to have to buy out Watson and move on. But nothing is imminent.
Notes from around the NFL
Minnesota quarterback Sam Darnold took a step back last week, which was kind of inevitable, but people I talk with around the league are still bullish on the Vikings. “That’s the best team in the NFC for me,” the GM said. “Kevin O’Connell might be a top-five head coach.” …
The Steelers’ defense stunk in many ways vs. Dallas, but don’t ignore how Pittsburgh took CeeDee Lamb away, causing the wide receiver to lose his cool multiple times and probably playing a role in Dak Prescott’s two interceptions. Given the limitations of the Cowboys’ offense, expect the Lions to pick up Sunday where the Steelers left off. Detroit Coach Dan Campbell is 13-5 against the spread on the road since the start of 2022. I’m just sayin’.