Chiefs could be tempted to change up their attack against Chargers, says NFL analyst
After he fumbled in the red zone in the first quarter of last Sunday’s game against the Jaguars, Chiefs rookie running back Isiah Pacheco was upset with himself.
“I was a little bit more mad, a little angrier,” Pacheco told reporters after the game, “just willing to make the defense feel me and try to eventually break one in the second half.”
In Cris Collinsworth’s (facetious) opinion, the Chiefs would be well-served to make Pacheco mad again this Sunday when they face the Chargers at SoFi Stadium.
“After he fumbled that ball he played mad the rest of the game and it looked good,” Collinsworth, the NBC Sports NFL analyst, said in a phone interview. “You know it’s just like hey, do that more. Somebody go make Pacheco mad. You might have a mad coach, somebody who’s in charge of making him mad all the time because that was pretty good.”
Collinsworth, who will join Mike Tirico in calling Sunday’s Chiefs-Chargers game, chuckled as he talked about someone going out of their way to make Pacheco angry.
But Pacheco did look good after the turnover. He averaged 5.1 yards per carry against the Jaguars, piling up 82 rushing yards in 16 carries.
Collinsworth thinks the Chiefs could be tempted to increase those carries against the Chargers defense, which is allowing an AFC-worst 5.4 yards per carry. L.A.’s opponents have rushed for 146.8 yards a game, and only the Texans and Lions have a worse per-game average.
“When you look at those numbers, you go, ‘Oh, man, this team’s not very good stopping the run,’” Collinsworth said. “If they turn around and hand the ball to Pacheco 30 times in this game, that’s probably not the right thing to do either, right, because you have (quarterback) Patrick Mahomes and (tight end Travis) Kelce and and all these receivers. So it’s sort of how tempting can this Chargers defense be. ... They make it pretty tempting to run the ball again.
“And that same sensation is going to be in front of (coach) Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes. So they know their best option is to leave it in Patrick’s hands but they also are looking at those numbers and looking at some holes and some of those opportunities and going ‘It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if we just handed this thing off and picked up 6 yards here.’ So I think that balancing act is gonna be really fun to see.”
