A Chiefs coach called this the quarterback’s best friend. That explains a lot
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Chiefs defense allowed 169 play-action yards in Week 1, most in the NFL.
- Play-action helped Justin Herbert throw for 318 yards and three touchdowns.
- Kansas City offense now studies play-action as a key strategic advantage.
On the first defensive drive of this Chiefs season, Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert lined up under center. After taking the snap, he stuck the ball in the chest of his running back and then pulled it back.
A little play-action.
Chiefs linebacker Nick Bolton bit, and so did inside cornerback Chamarri Connor, allowing Herbert to hit a wide-open Quentin Johnston. The throw barely out-covered the distance of a handoff, but the play still went for 33 yards.
It became the story of that opening night in Brazil — the Chiefs lined up to stop the run, only to be burned for 169 yards on play-action passes alone, 55 more than any other NFL team in Week 1. Herbert finished with the gaudy numbers — 318 yards and three touchdowns — but the real takeaway was just how easy the threat of the L.A. running game made everything for him.
That relevance has stuck in Kansas City three weeks later.
Not for the defense.
For the offense.
Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes is operating without that easy button, in large part because he is operating without that same threat of a running game — or at least without a threat that opposing teams are taking seriously.
There is more than one hiccup in the Chiefs’ passing game right now, including personnel and perhaps some predictability, but there is one most glaring problem with the passing game:
The running game.
Let me explain.
The Chiefs have faced the second-most light boxes in the NFL this season — categorized as situations when six or fewer defenders are lined up in the area of the field best equipped to defend the run, rather than the pass. Light boxes represent the most run-friendly looks, and the Chiefs sure see a lot of affection there.
Relatedly, they have also faced the fourth-fewest stacked boxes — instances in which there are eight or more defenders lined up to stop the run, leaving open some avenues on the back end.
The TL;DR version: Teams are all but begging the Chiefs to run the football. The Chiefs should be among the very best at it, because they’re offered looks that rank among the most run-friendly in the game.
That’s one way to spin it. There’s another: The Chiefs’ offense is offered the most un-friendly quarterback looks in the game.
After the Chargers surprised the Chiefs with a pass-heavy scheme, for example, Bolton said the way that some teams are able to make the run and pass plays look the same requires “discipline on our part to get our eyes right.”
Well, when teams play the Chiefs, there are 11 sets of eyes all focused in one place: Patrick Mahomes.
They’re sitting fastball and spitting on the curveball. And the Chiefs still can’t land a breaking pitch in the zone.
Isiah Pacheco has faced zero stacked boxes in three weeks — zero! — and he has still produced a measly 3.7 yards per carry on 25 attempts. No NFL running back has carried the ball more without confronting a single stacked box, which means, theoretically, Pacheco should be near the top of the leaderboard in the league’s rushing stats.
Yet his longest carry of the season is 11 yards, the longest by any Chiefs running back this year.
As a team, the Chiefs have gained only 42 yards on explosive runs, fourth fewest in the league. They have just four carries of 10-plus yards, sixth fewest in the league.
Much of this falls at the feet of the running backs, with one moving too slow and another moving too hurriedly. The tape shows lanes. The statistics do not.
When they can’t make a defense pay for sending extra bodies to the secondary to defend the pass — when an opposition’s worst fear is a 5- or 6-yard carry that rarely comes to fruition — why wouldn’t they keep their attention on Mahomes instead?
Well, they are.
And if you think it’s Mahomes’ presence alone that forces defenses to play that way — as opposed to the absence of an effective running game — allow me to introduce you to Josh Allen in Buffalo and Lamar Jackson in Baltimore. You know, the two quarterbacks who finished 1-2 in the MVP race last year.
The easiest apples-to-apples comparison on these metrics (provided by Next Gen Stats and FTN Fantasy throughout this column) is to compare first-down snaps, because they all have the same yardage to travel to move the chains. So in that vein, on first downs this season, the Chiefs have confronted the second-most light boxes (run-friendly). The Ravens rank 27th and the Bills 29th in facing light boxes on first downs.
Those two teams employ Jackson and Allen at quarterback, and yet teams are still loading up the box to defend the run, fearful of the way those two teams can run the ball. And by the way, the Bills have the second-most yards in the league against stacked boxes, and the Ravens have the fifth most. Teams have no choice but to continue to throw numbers at stopping the run.
Sure makes passing the ball easier, don’t you think?
When Allen or Jackson stare into the secondary, they see space. When Mahomes stares into the secondary, he’s greeted with congestion.
It’s a huge difference.
In a lot of ways. Remember Nick Bolton’s reaction to play-action? When you fear the run, you are more likely to fall for it.
Baltimore is the second-most effective play-action team in the NFL through three weeks (as graded by expected points added per dropback). Buffalo is sixth. The Chiefs are 23rd, and it’s honestly a bit surprising they’re even that high, other the fact that at least Mahomes is involved in those snaps.
Quarterbacking, relatively speaking, is easy in Baltimore and Buffalo. Or easier. Quarterbacking looks really hard in Kansas City right now.
That illustrates why.
Mahomes is without his best two receivers. His longtime favorite weapon has lost a step and has produced more memorable moments on the sideline this year than the actual field. Those affect the offense, no doubt.
But teams are still playing the pass. They’re still playing to subtract Mahomes.
The running game is failing to make them pay for it.
A couple of weeks ago, Chiefs offensive coordinator Matt Nagy referred to the running game as “as quarterback’s best friend.”
It’s accurate. But the phrasing itself is fitting, come to think of it.
Because it has seemed like this quarterback frequently needs to do it all himself.
This story was originally published September 26, 2025 at 6:30 AM.