Sam McDowell: Patrick Mahomes' health isn't the Chiefs' most important evaluation

ST. JOSEPH, Mo. — The most prominent on-field development of this Chiefs training camp stepped to a microphone before he actually stepped onto the field. The next 12 minutes could be summed up in two words.

He’s back.

The fact that Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes received medical clearance two days before the team convened in St. Joseph will be the most relevant on-field storyline to come from training camp.

The most relevant football storyline of the season stepped to the same microphone 15 minutes beforehand.

Andy Reid.

This camp will be about evaluating the health of the franchise quarterback. This season, though, will be defined by the head coach’s offseason evaluation of, well, himself.

If the Chiefs want to turn a 6-11 year into a blip, they must turn the microscope on themselves, and they should zoom in on a particular category: the run game.

The appearance of a stale passing game could always be freshened, sure, but even that’s rooted in what is more obviously a stale running game. It’s harder to do the former when defenses know you won’t and can’t do the latter.

The Chiefs’ best path to making Mahomes more effective, therefore, is to couple his ability with something that’s effective.

I don’t want to put all that on Reid, because something had to change before he really could change: his options.

Isiah Pacheco operated as a lead back when healthy last season, but he did not operate nearly effectively enough to be one. There are 49 running backs who qualified for the stat I’m about to share: Pacheco avoided only 14.4% of possible tackles he encountered.

That ranked 48th in the league. Just one running back ranked worse, Carolina’s Chuba Hubbard. Kareem Hunt, who often shared the load with Pacheco, ranked 44th.

So the Chiefs employed two of the worst-six running backs in their ability to make people miss. They had the second-fewest explosive rushes in the NFL last season.

The Chiefs also did not run the ball enough.

The last three sentences derive from the same reason: The running backs were not good enough.

That reason is gone.

Revert back to that statistic I used earlier — avoided tackle percentage — that included 49 qualified running backs, per FTN Fantasy data. Well, Kennth Walker led the NFL in it.

Here’s where Andy Reid becomes part of the storyline. It’s not merely a better player that leads to more explosiveness, but also a better play. Walker ranked first in avoided tackle percentage, per FTN data, and he ranked fourth in the NFL in explosive play rate.

But there’s a specific way he accomplished it, and it’s a specific way the Chiefs did not approach in their own running game.

Walker kills it on planned rushes — the plays that don’t include a run-pass option (RPO).

Walker carried 14 times for 20 yards on RPO plays last season. On all other types of rushes, he averaged 4.9 yards per carry, and he totaled more than 1,000 yards in the regular season before he bossed the playoffs. (By the way, if you filter out the minimum number of carries, the most efficient rusher in the NFL last year on non-RPO runs was Emari Demercado, who turned 37 of them into nearly 300 yards. He’s now behind Walker on the Chiefs’ depth chart.)

The Chiefs last year took a contrasting approach. They led the NFL with 155 RPO rushes, despite ranking 27th in the NFL with 3.7 yards per carry on those runs.

That’s where Reid becomes the focal point. It’s where he has no choice but to change.

If he doesn’t, the Chiefs paid $43.05 million over the next three years — their most expensive free-agent contract — to the wrong player.

Will they better mix up the rushing looks? Will they design their carries rather than giving the quarterback an option?

Well, there came a sign Thursday, at the second practice of training camp here in St. Joseph. It was more bread crumbs than neon-flashing logos. But even in the passing portion of camp, before the pads come on, the Chiefs lined up under center. A lot. Afterward, center Creed Humphrey even commented on it.

“We’re excited about what we’re doing right now,” Humphrey said, “and we’re excited about where this offense is headed.”

It’s running the ball more, and it’s running it with more purpose.

That’s where the narrative has lost its proper focus this offseason, with the rallying cry for Reid to solve everything in the offense by just handing it off. He was asked about it here in St. Joseph again this week, to which he quipped, “I think we’re probably going to run every down.”

That’s only halfway to the answer. Yes, the Chiefs could and probably should run the ball more often on early downs.

Now.

But last year? Pacheco and Hunt combined to average just 3.8 yards per carry in 2025, despite facing the most run-friendly defensive looks in the NFL. I’ve already told you where they ranked in their ability to make someone miss. We’re supposed to think the Chiefs should have used them even more frequently?

This has always been a two-pronged answer, made possible by a single offseason move. The Chiefs opened their free agency by handing Reid a reason to run the ball more and provided him an avenue toward running it more effectively.

It’s on him to take the opportunity and run with it.