Why the NFL should be terrified of the Chiefs' new offense – Transcript

00:00Did you notice that Kenneth Walker has totally flipped how the Chiefs play offense? So, what has that meant? Let's dig into it. Last season, the Chiefs were among the most pass-happy, shotgun-heavy teams in the NFL. Kansas City threw the ball 65% of the time in 2025, the fifth-highest rate in the entire league, and they did it while operating almost entirely out of the shotgun. The Chiefs were under center on just 18.5% of snaps last season, the third-lowest rate in the league. On its face, this approach makes sense when Patrick Mahomes is your quarterback. In theory, putting Mahomes in the gun and

00:27letting him go to work with an arsenal of RP videos and quick passing concepts means allowing arguably the best quarterback in football to dictate the offense. But over time, the cracks in that approach started to form. Until Mahomes tore his ACL in week 15, Kansas City was one of the most efficient offenses in the league, ranking fifth in offensive success rate through 13 games.

00:45The problem is that despite their ability to string together drives, the Chiefs' inability to create explosive plays made their games a slog on offense. Through week 14, KC averaged a league-high 6.73 plays per drive and ranked just 17th in explosive play rate.

01:00The offense relied too much on Mahomes' ability as a scrambler and his magic on third down. It felt stale, slow, and vulnerable to any negative player penalty that could derail an otherwise promising drive. By the end of the year, as the Chiefs missed the playoffs for the first time in Mahomes' tenure, it was clear that this version of the offense had run out of road. When free agency opened in March, the Chiefs wasted a little time in addressing one of their biggest issues by making a big splash in signing running back Kenneth Walker to a 3-year, $43 million deal.

01:25Fresh off a Super Bowl MVP and a monster run through the playoffs, Walker represented a chance to fix arguably Kansas City's worst problem as an offense. With a banged-up receiving corps and aging Travis Kelce, the Chiefs' passing game lacked pop in 2025. But it was their inability to create explosive plays on the ground that really set the Chiefs apart from the rest of the league. Kansas City finished with just one running back run of 20-plus yards last season, after logging just two of them in 2024, both dead last in the NFL. Walker was billed as a chance to solve that problem. Only

01:53Devonta Achane finished with a higher explosive run rate last season, and per NextGen Stats, no back hit 15-plus mph on a higher rate of their runs in 2025. So far, that bet has paid off for the Chiefs, but it's also led to so much more. After finishing with just three combined runs of 20-plus yards by the running backs the past two seasons combined, Walker already has a league-leading six through the first month of the season. He's broken 40 tackles over the Chiefs' first four games and has 215 total rushing yards

02:21following those missed tackles. No Chiefs back hit those totals over all of last year. Walker has completely transformed the explosive potential of the Chiefs' running back room, but he also has Andy Reid approaching his entire offense differently and breathing new life into his team in the process.

02:35Remember that 18.5% under center rate the Chiefs had in 2025, the third lowest rate in the league? Well, this year that number has jumped all the way to 39.7%, which sits in the middle of the pack. Reid has gone from a spread-out pass-heavy approach to a system that's leaning on its run game and the play-action compliments that Casey can build off it. Last year, the Chiefs used run action, meaning a run play action, on just 55.8% of plays, the 24th highest rate in the league. This year, that number is 62.3%,

03:02good for fifth in the NFL. And what's really exciting about this pivot isn't just that the Chiefs have been willing to reinvent themselves, it's that the whole plan is working. Plenty of teams around the NFL talked a big game this off season about a pivot to more under center snaps on offense. The Bengals, Commanders, and Eagles all made it known, either explicitly or through the hire of new coordinators, that they'd be moving from a shotgun-based approach to more under center snaps in order to fall in line with the league's current hot trend. So far this season, all three of those teams still rank bottom six in the

03:30frequency of their under center snaps and in EPA per play on those snaps. The Chiefs, meanwhile, rank second in the entire league in EPA per play under center this year and second in an explosive play rate. Kansas City's stale, lifeless approach on offense has been replaced with a dynamic running game and a bevy of play-action shots to play off it. The Chiefs made a bet this off season that one home run-hitting back and a commitment to him as a foundational player could remake an offense in desperate need of a refresh.

03:56And through four games, it looks like they were right. Thank you for watching. If you like this video, check out last week's timely episode on how Bryce Young is playing the best football of his career. And subscribe to our channel to catch all future episodes.