Carson Steele has been given a chance to show he can be a featured running back in Kansas City. The un-drafted free agent from UCLA has been fantastic since arriving in training camp. On Sunday against the Atlanta Falcons, he could make his first NFL start.
The news that Running Back Isiah Pacheco will be out six to eight weeks with a broken leg puts the pressure on Matt Nagy’s unit into crisis mode. With only newcomer Samaje Perine and rookie Carson Steele as the only healthy backs in the running back room, the Chiefs found veteran help in an old friend, Kareem Hunt but he won’t play Sunday.
One who has thought, with the injury to Pacheco, the Chiefs would bring back Jerrick McKinnon or look elsewhere? McKinnon is long in the tooth for RBs at age 32, and Clyde Edwards-Helaire is on the Non-Football Injury list while taking a mental health break. What’s the plan? Well, it won’t be McKinnon.
The free agent running back pool was limited, with Hunt joining Marlon Mack and Damien Harris. Practice squad backs include Emani Bailey, and Keontay Ingram, who was elevated Wednesday to the 53-man roster is an unknown. Bailey is not ready, so the Chiefs signed Hunt to their practice squad. They believe he still has gas in the tank and could be especially useful. Yet, he won’t play Sunday in Atlanta.
Hunt has a controversial history in Kansas City, but the Chiefs felt he’d matured since he last suited up in a Kansas City uniform in 2018.
The decision to take a chance on Hunt also shows their comfortability in rookie Carson Steele. Still, Reid and Nagy feel they have enough juice in the running back room to make a dent in the apparent need for ground production.
Patrick Mahomes isn’t playing lights-out football, with only 442 yards passing, three touchdowns, and three interceptions in two games. This is not a typical Mahomes stat line. I firmly believe he will get better as the season progresses, but this is all dependent on the ground game.
I’m cautiously optimistic that we have yet to see what the capability of this offense truly is. Maybe adding a new spark for the running backs can provide enough motivation for them to exceed expectations if the prescription is needed.
Regardless, Steele appears to be the man of the hour, and we’ll see if he can delivery the boom against a very poor Falcons run defense.
