What the Chiefs are doing on offense shouldn’t work in NFL. Here’s why it still does
Chiefs wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster was eating breakfast at a Chick-fil-A in Kansas City on Monday when an employee approached his table.
After a brief conversation, the worker stopped sweeping the floor and requested a vow, of sorts.
If you play well tonight, you have to come back and eat breakfast here every game.
Prophetic, right?
Smith-Schuster produced his best game in six seasons, part of the impetus for the Chiefs’ 26-13 win against the Saints. He caught seven passes — all but one of his targets — for 130 yards, the most he’s accumulated in a game since the 2018 season. Unpredictable, in other words.
Except the Chiefs predicted it.
OK, and one restaurant employee.
The Smith-Schuster story arc is rare outside Kansas City. These things just don’t tend to happen in this league. But it defined Kansas City on Monday night.
The cast-offs, they turned it on.
It was Smith-Schuster, yes, but it was running backs Kareem Hunt and Samaje Perine; it was wide receiver Mecole Hardman; it was tight end Jody Fortson.
That group, in its entirety, has never shared a roster, but those five have something in common. They were all let go (Hunt) or outright released (the other four) by their respective teams. All left to wonder not when and where their next NFL opportunity would come, but if it would come at all.
Thrown aside.
They threw back a haymaker.
The outcasts combined for 294 yards in Monday’s win against the Saints at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium. That’s not a misprint. Smith-Schuster had his 130. Hunt ran for 102 yards and a touchdown.
Perine, on the other end of the Travis Kelce lateral, was credited with 24. Hardman caught all four targets for 33. And Fortson caught a pass for first-down yardage.
One of them — just one, Hardman — spent training camp with the Chiefs, and the Jets couldn’t get rid of him fast enough last year.
The Broncos, owners of the fifth-worst offense in football, cut Perine out of camp. Hunt watched the first few weeks of this NFL season from his sofa after the Browns, owners of the worst offense in the NFL, walked on him. Fortson was plucked from the Dolphins’ practice squad.
Smith-Schuster, in contrast to each of those players, at least has a fat paycheck comparable to his production.
From the Patriots.
They still owe him $7 million after cutting him in August. They paid him to leave town.
Think of that. The team that has fewer passing yards than any other in football paid to watch one receiver account for 130 yards through the air on national television. The Patriots only have one receiver who has accounted for 130 yards combined in five games.
These aren’t the leftovers from the early models of a Porsche. They are the spare parts from a 1980s Yugo.
Those are their stories.
The collective is a Chiefs story.
The worse the offensive roster gets, the more the results stay the same. These situations are woven into the fabric of this dynasty, the Chiefs needing to ration dollars as they pay Patrick Mahomes a lot of them.
But this particular situation is forced upon them, with the preseason injury to Marquise “Hollywood” Brown and the Week 4 knee injury to Rashee Rice.
It’s enough to make most offenses crumble. The Chiefs just totaled 100 yards more than they’d accumulated in any other game this season. Mahomes just had his best passing game of the season. He didn’t even target a wide receiver until his 12th pass of the game.
A makeshift group made it happen.
How?
This is the literal first response when I asked those involved that question:
“It’s Coach Reid, man,” Hardman said. “Putting people in the right position to make plays, you know what I mean?”
“I think that’s about this coaching staff,” Fortson said. “It feels good to be wanted and to be utilized. They have an idea of what you bring to the game.”
“To be honest,” Smith-Schuster said, “(Reid) just knows how to put guys in position.”
It’s schematic, certainly, and that’s a credit to Reid, because this group wasn’t the Chiefs’ first choice. But what do the New England coaches think of watching Smith-Schuster tear up the Saints? What does the Patriots’ front office think?
This is the very sport — the very league — in which this kind of thing isn’t supposed to work. Teams that get older get buried. Heck, a significant part of the Chiefs’ roster-building strategy is to stay young and stay fast. They’ve churned their roster far more than anyone realizes.
But there’s a deliberate method to the way they fill in the gaps. Those gaps have just been thrust into prime-time. They acquire veteran players who can get up to speed quickly — or who they know are willing to try.
Smith-Schuster made flashcards to learn the offense, and he was part of it only two years ago. That might sound surprising. It did not surprise the front office in Kansas City.
The payoff: Smith-Schuster’s 50-yard catch to help ice the game in the fourth quarter shouldn’t have worked. It was a zone-beating play, and the Saints, known for running unscouted looks on defense, played man-to-man.
Oops.
But Smith-Schuster adjusted on the fly. He could only adjust on the fly because he was completely aware of what route everyone else was running.
“Studying, studying, studying,” he said. “Pen to paper, 24-7.”
Well, not 24-7. He does make time for a sitdown breakfast at a restaurant.
That’s how his Monday started.
It ended with a walk into a room reserved for Chiefs post-game news conferences. The place where Reid, Mahomes and a select couple of others in high demand take questions.
Smith-Schuster stepped to the microphone shortly after 11 p.m.
“It’s been a minute since I’ve been back up here,” he said.
Just needed the right opportunity.
Or, rather, the right team providing it.