KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Well before his usual offseason tradition of evaluating the Kansas City Chiefs’ offensive scheme, coach Andy Reid knew he had a major problem. Any time he turned on the film of last year’s unit, one trend became worse and worse.
“If you watch the level two defenders, the linebackers and or a safety coming up in the box, if we’re selling a play-action and those guys are dropping [into coverage], they’re not honoring the run game,” Reid said last week. “There’s something that they’re seeing and not respecting.”
As last season progressed, one in which the Chiefs finished with a lackluster 6-11 record and missed the playoffs for the first time since 2014, opposing defenses never felt threatened by the appearance -- or the plausible possibility -- of quarterback Patrick Mahomes handing the ball to former running backs Isiah Pacheco and Kareem Hunt. The results led to the Chiefs having one of the NFL’s worst passing attacks when utilizing play-action.
Although the Chiefs used play-action on 178 snaps last season, the seventh most in the NFL, they produced just 977 passing yards from it, ranking 20th, according to ESPN Research. In fact, the Chiefs surrendered more sacks (nine) than they scored touchdowns (three).
An example of a snap that illustrated the Chiefs’ issue last season occurred early in the fourth quarter against the Houston Texans in Week 14. With three tight ends on the field, Mahomes turned his back to the defense, executed a play-action fake with Hunt and then noticed that none of his three receiving options -- receiver Tyquan Thornton, tight end Travis Kelce and Hunt -- were open, leading him to throw the ball out of bounds.
“Well, play-action has always been a big part of this offense,” Reid said. “We look at the production of it. What are you getting out of it [on film]? You might as well just dropback and forget about the play-action.”
If the Chiefs are going to become a more potent offense this upcoming season, Reid and Mahomes have identified that the unit’s play-action passing attack needs to have fangs that hurt opposing defenses.
The Chiefs’ biggest acquisition in free agency, running back Kenneth Walker III, is also part of the equation. As the reigning Super Bowl MVP, Walker has made it clear his running style preference is to work under center, which is expected to be a bigger part of the offense this season. The Chiefs know Walker presents a more dangerous threat that should force linebackers and safeties to move forward before Mahomes attempts a play-action pass.
After all, Pacheco and Hunt combined for only one rushing attempt that gained more than 20 yards in 2025, which ranked last in the league. With the Seattle Seahawks last season, Walker was fourth in percentage of runs that gained 10 or more yards (minimum of 150 touches), according to NFL Next Gen Stats.
“No. 9. That’s all I can say,” Mahomes said, referencing Walker’s jersey number, when asked what intrigues him most about the offense. “That change and the ability to catch, run, pass protect, do everything. [He can] make a play out of nothing into a 20-yard gain. That’s going to be the biggest impact, I think, we’ll have -- just finding the ways to get him the ball.”
Last season, the Chiefs had Mahomes in the shotgun on 80.6% of their formations (excluding quarterback kneel-downs), which was the third most in the NFL, according to ESPN Research. Throughout training camp, though, Mahomes spent several reps under center. Those plays revealed Mahomes executing several different types of play-action passes -- true seven-step dropbacks, naked rollouts and even creative, nontraditional fakes that involved a receiver in motion.
A sizable amount of those reps led to Mahomes throwing the ball more than 20 yards downfield. Those passes were most often caught by Kelce, Thornton and receiver Xavier Worthy. Mahomes attempted just seven passes last season in which his play-action pass traveled 20 or more yards downfield, according to ESPN Research. He completed just three of those passes.
“We’ve got a lot of great players on this offense,” Kelce said. “It’s not just me. We’ve got some young guys that can play. [Worthy is] a man on a mission right now, and I love the way he’s working and his attention to detail and how he’s running his routes and just the aggression that he’s running his routes in.
“Pat has done an unbelievable job of not only getting himself ready, but working with these receivers and making sure that everybody’s living up to that standard of how we’re going to play this year.”
Even when in shotgun, Mahomes spent time in camp throwing intermediate passes in the middle of the field to work with his receivers on placing the ball behind linebackers who were retreating back into coverage. A receiver who caught many of those passes was Rashee Rice, who had eight such intermediate receptions between the numbers, according to ESPN Research.
“Hopefully that works that way in the season,” Reid said. “You want to put those level two defenders in a recovery mode. It creates seams and then you’ve got to be able to shoot the seams.”
One detail that Mahomes has worked to fix in camp is to show the ball longer to the defense -- and closer to Walker or the other running backs -- to better execute his fakes so that it mirrors closer to a true handoff. Too often last season, Mahomes showed the ball in front of Hunt or Pacheco and pulled it back quicker than he should have, which tipped opposing linebackers to the Chiefs’ intentions of attempting a pass.
“When you have a great run game, it opens up things down the field because it tends to have people play closer to the line of scrimmage,” said offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy. “Kenneth has been very impressive. The thing that I love about him is his competitive spirit.”
One way Walker can help transform the offense is by becoming a true dual-threat player. Reid has been pleased with Walker’s route-running ability, especially on plays when he is asked to run away from linebackers who are in man-to-man coverage.
With Walker’s receiving skills and ability to make defenders miss in the open field, Reid had the offense run one of his favorite passing concepts: the variety of plays where a play-action fake to the running back is executed before a short screen pass is thrown back to the same running back.
“He looks like he’s the full package,” Reid said of Walker. “He works at it. That’s the part I appreciate. He’s always asking questions.”
Reid smiled last week when he made a joke in reference to the Chiefs’ first offensive play of the preseason -- the lone snap against the Los Angeles Rams that included Walker.
“We play-actioned on the first play,” Reid said. “We ran a naked and everybody ran over there [toward Walker]. I go, ‘OK, I like that.’”
