Sam McDowell: Brett Veach identified the Chiefs' biggest need. The answer is complicated.

Sam McDowell, The Kansas City Star on Feb 26, 2026

Published in Football

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KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A contingent of media swarmed the middle stage inside the Indianapolis Convention Center, the precursor for a barrage of questions to one of football’s best stories.

To a nearby stage walked the general manager of another team, and he stared out toward a much smaller crowd.

Brett Veach, the Chiefs' general manager, entered the NFL scouting combine in a different role this year — the side attraction, not the main feature.

The Chiefs are a 6-11 team, not coming off a Super Bowl win or at least a Super Bowl appearance.

It has changed their attention here in Indianapolis — but it’s also changed the past several weeks back in Kansas City. The Chiefs have not been preparing for a game every week but rather evaluating why there’s been no game for which to prepare.

The top answer?

“Certainly,” Veach said Tuesday, “we need to get more explosive in the running game.”

It hits at an interesting dilemma confronting the Chiefs over this offseason. Their most obvious problem a year ago was the running game — even their most obvious path to helping Patrick Mahomes — but what follows is a much less obvious solution.

The running back spot is not a position to which you want to allocate major resources. That’s not just my opinion but instead a fact of certain teams over the last decade: Super Bowl winners. Since 2013, no Super Bowl champion has spent more than 2% of its salary cap on a running back.

If the Chiefs spend a significant amount of free agent dollars on a running back — which they don’t have, by the way — it would require bucking a trend to get back to where they’ve been three times this decade. Similarly, if they use the No. 9 overall pick on, say, Notre Dame star running back Jeremiyah Love, they’d be doing it at the expense of more premium positions that they also need.

“Some of those more premium positions — interior D-line, edge rushers — they’re hard to find,” Veach said. “The problem with those guys is they’re hard to find, and then they don’t really become available in free agency. Some of those other positions, they’re good players, (but) you’ll probably eventually get a chance to get some of those positions in free agency.

“That’s the thing you just have to go through and weigh out all of the options.”

That’s indeed the conundrum for a team that clearly needs better personnel in the backfield. Their running backs did not make people miss. They weren’t home-run hitters — they generated the least explosive yards in the NFL. I could go on.

They simply need better talent. How can they acquire it?

It’s a multi-faceted dilemma.

It requires a multi-faceted solution.

The scheme has to help. See, Veach didn’t stop at mentioning the need for more explosive rushes. He also mentioned why the Chiefs should have more explosive rushes — and it’s not just that they faced run-friendly defensive personnel.

“We’ve invested in that interior (offensive line) with Trey Smith and Creed Humphrey — I mean, two of the best in the league,” Veach said. “And we thought Kingsley (Suamataia) made a big step. Those are three talented interior players.

“I think being more explosive in the running game and really taking advantage of those interior three to impose your will on an opposing team’s defense.”

Here’s the thing, though: The Chiefs didn’t give that interior offensive line much of a chance to impose its will.

The Chiefs lived out of an RPO (run-pass option) offense. They were terrible at the first word.

On RPO plays, the Chiefs averaged only 3.7 yards per carry, per Sports Info Solutions data. That ranked 28th in the league. They were dead last in EPA (expected points added) on RPO rushes. They were 29th in explosive rush rate on RPOs. They were 28th in missed tackle rate.

Yet they rushed the ball on RPO plays more often than any team in the league.

If you want to be a top-5 offense in the NFL, it’s probably not wise to lead the league in a play-call that you execute about as poorly as any team in football.

The Chiefs do need better personnel. That might be difficult to obtain.

But they also need a scheme that prioritizes running the ball more effectively — such as letting those three interior linemen impose their will on rushes rather hesitate on RPO plays to prepare for the either/or built into those calls. In that vein, it’s worth noting they brought back Eric Bieniemy as offensive coordinator and switched running backs coaches.

I’ve talked about the potential of some staleness to the offense. I’ve talked about the predictability of it.

Those are often highlighting the passing game.

But those evaluations need to encompass the element of the offense that can best help the passing game — the running game.

And they need to look at creating a blueprint for a better running game, which will require more than acquiring an expensive free agent or using a top draft pick.

If the Chiefs deem they cannot afford to prioritize the position, they can at least prioritize putting themselves in a better position.