
The Kansas City Chiefs appear to be getting the band back together in their backfield for next season.
According to ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler, veteran running back Kareem Hunt agreed to a one-year contract worth up to $2.5 million to continue his second stint with the Chiefs.
But, after a disappointing end to last season, Kansas City is making a major mistake by running it back.
Their plan here is pretty straightforward; Isiah Pacheco will be their primary running back, and Hunt and former 49ers running back Elijah Mitchell will back him up. But let’s not act like the Hunt-Pacheco combo was anything to write home about last year.
The Chiefs ranked 22nd in rushing yards last season, and 28th in yards per carry. Neither Pacheco nor Hunt managed to crack four yards per carry, and combined, they barely cracked 100 yards per game rushing. Both had some injury issues, but even when healthy, neither one looked all that good.
Adding Mitchell doesn’t exactly inspire much confidence, either. In three seasons in San Francisco, Mitchell has been one of the most injury-prone players in all of football, and the 25-year-old didn’t look all that great when he was healthy last year.
The Chiefs must think Pacheco’s struggles last year were due to nagging injuries before he was shut down for the year, but that’s a risky gamble to take in the NFL. Running it back and trying again when the previous season went so poorly is a recipe for even more problems next season.
It could be that Kansas City is planning to find help in the draft; there are a plethora of talented backs in this class, and there should be plenty of them available even with Kansas City’s low-sitting picks.
Hopefully that’s what Andy Reid and company plan to do, because running back one of the worst running back corps in the NFL isn’t going to end the way they hope. And in an offseason where they have plenty of holes to fill and questions to answer, ignoring that one could be incredibly costly.