Question: What is the most consequential thing the Chiefs have to manage at 2-0?

Answer: Kenneth Walker III. He is the reason they are unbeaten, he leads the league in carries and rushing yards, and Andy Reid spent the week saying the Chiefs have to use him less.

This is the first of these reports. It runs on a Thursday rather than the Tuesday slot the weekly schedule will use, because it was written while the job that produces it was being built and verified.

The game just played

The Chiefs beat the Colts 33-30 in overtime at Arrowhead Stadium on September 20. The final margin was three points. The game was not that close. Kansas City gained 523 yards on 78 plays, held the ball for 37 minutes, and did not turn it over. Indianapolis managed 329 yards and gave the ball away once.

What kept the score close was Kansas City itself. Eight penalties for 86 yards. A missed 51-yard field goal by Harrison Butker on a drive that would otherwise have produced points, and the AP’s recap notes that each of the Chiefs’ first four possessions would have scored without it. Three touchdowns on five trips inside the twenty. The better team spent the evening handing the game back.

The offense is the part that held. Patrick Mahomes completed 32 of 47 passes for 382 yards and three touchdowns without an interception. Walker carried 24 times for 117 yards and caught six passes for 61 more. Travis Kelce caught nine passes for 101 yards and a score, and he broke Marshall Faulk’s record for career yards after the catch, a statistic the league record book has kept since 1992. It was the first Chiefs game with more than 350 passing yards and 150 rushing yards since 2018, and the first with more than 500 total yards since 2022.

Then came overtime, and the strangest four minutes of the young season.

Butker’s 31-yard field goal put Kansas City ahead 30-27. The Colts answered with a deep shot to Laquon Treadwell, who had beaten L’Jarius Sneed. Treadwell came down bobbling the ball, got to his feet, and lost it. The Chiefs recovered, and the officials ruled a fumble. Replay review decided Treadwell was down by contact, which returned the ball to Indianapolis and left the Colts three plays from a decision. Facing fourth-and-8 with the game in the balance, Indianapolis chose the field goal.

“Had a play called. Had to love the look to run it there. We took the delay and kicked the field goal.”

— Shane Steichen, via the AP recap of the game, September 21

Spencer Shrader made it from 38 yards, and the game was tied at 30. Kansas City had 3:11 and used most of it. Three straight handoffs to Walker got the ball to midfield, and then Mahomes found the same running back on a short pass that became a 22-yard gain.

“They were in a pressure look. We were able to change the play. You get the ball in his hands, Rashee (Rice) did a great job of blocking on the perimeter. That got us in field goal range.”

— Patrick Mahomes, via the AP recap of the game, September 21

Butker made the 40-yarder as time expired. It is the second straight season Kansas City has beaten Indianapolis on an overtime field goal.

The state of the team

Two weeks in, the Chiefs are 2-0 and hold the top seed in the AFC, as the feed lists it. Las Vegas is also 2-0, with a slightly better point differential (plus-26 to plus-24), and sits fifth as the conference’s top wild card. Denver is 1-1. The Chargers are 0-2. The division is already a two-team race, and the second team is the Raiders.

The offense is the reason for the start. Kansas City is scoring 32 points a game, and the AP’s preview of Sunday’s game puts the Chiefs at a league-best 457.5 yards a game, about 137 more than their average last season. The run game ranked 25th in the league last season at 106.6 yards a game. It is producing 186 a game this season at 5.6 yards a carry.

That was the plan, and it was an expensive one. Kansas City missed the playoffs last season for the first time since Andy Reid’s second season with the team, and the offseason answer was to buy a running back. Walker, the MVP of Super Bowl LX for Seattle, agreed to a three-year deal worth up to $45 million with $28.7 million guaranteed (as NFL.com reported in March). Through two games he has 47 carries for 290 yards, both league highs, and 369 yards from scrimmage, which also leads the league according to Pro Football Talk’s reading of the Week 2 statistics.

Not everything is fixed. The Chiefs have taken 15 penalties for 146 yards and converted 14 of 30 third downs. They have scored on 90 percent of their red-zone trips but reached the end zone on only 60 percent of them. The pass rush has four sacks in two games. The turnover margin, plus-2, is the friendliest number in the pile and the one most likely to move.

Injuries and personnel

The Chiefs released their first injury report of the week on Wednesday and their second on Thursday. Game status designations were due Friday, so the picture below is the practice report through Thursday, which is what the team had published at the time of writing (Chiefs.com, September 24).

Josh Simmons, the left tackle, is the most consequential name on it. He has a back injury that began during training camp and he has not practiced this week. Andy Reid was direct on Wednesday: “He is getting better, but he won’t go today” (KCTV5, September 23). A to Z Sports expects Simmons to miss a third consecutive game, based on Wednesday’s and Thursday’s reports. The Chiefs have offered no timetable.

Safety Chamarri Conner is the other real concern. He was limited Wednesday and Thursday while being eased back from the knee injury that cost him time in training camp, and A to Z Sports reads his limited work as a player returning gradually rather than as routine rest. The Chiefs played the Colts without him, and the AP’s recap describes Josh Downs picking apart a secondary missing Conner for a second straight game.

Chris Jones (calf) and L’Jarius Sneed (knee) were both limited on the week’s first report, and A to Z Sports reads those two listings as rest for veterans rather than as injury. Felix Anudike-Uzomah, limited Wednesday with a quad, returned to full participation Thursday. He has five pressures through two games, second on the team behind George Karlaftis, in that outlet’s count, which matters for a pass rush that has four sacks.

Mansoor Delane, the rookie cornerback who hurt his shoulder on an interception in the first quarter of his debut against Denver, was a full participant on Wednesday’s report. Reid said he could be a full go, and the AP’s preview expects him to play.

Omarr Norman-Lott, the second-year defensive tackle on the physically unable to perform list after a torn ACL, is doing more work. Reid said his practice window could open around the bye, which falls in Week 5.

The reserve list is unchanged. Cooper McDonald, a linebacker, has been on injured reserve since September 17, and Jimmy Holiday, a receiver, since August 31, according to the league’s injury feed.

Miami has its own list. Receiver Caleb Douglas (ankle) did not practice Wednesday or Thursday. Receiver Ryan Miller was downgraded to a non-participant Thursday with a hip and back injury. Edge rusher Rob Beal Jr. (hamstring) has not practiced at all. Rookie receiver Chris Bell, coming off an ACL injury, was limited but told reporters he expects to play, and edge rusher Chop Robinson was a full participant after missing Week 2 with a concussion.

The next game

Kansas City at Miami, Sunday, 12:00 p.m. Central, on CBS at Hard Rock Stadium. It is the Chiefs’ first road game of the season.

Miami is 0-2 and has been outscored 62-26. The Dolphins lost 27-13 at Las Vegas and 35-13 at San Francisco. They have not recorded a sack in two games and have allowed a league-high nine. Kirk Cousins and Brock Purdy each completed better than 70 percent of their passes against them. Seven Miami rookies have combined for 13 starts and 842 snaps, the most in the league. Running back De’Von Achane is the only Pro Bowler on the roster.

DraftKings lists the Chiefs at minus-10.5, with the total at 45.5 and the money line at minus-650 for Kansas City and plus-470 for Miami. ESPN’s Matchup Predictor gives the Chiefs an 85.4 percent win probability and Miami 14.5 percent. Those are ESPN’s numbers and not this site’s, and they are not a forecast this report is making.

Four things to watch on Sunday.

Walker’s carries. ESPN reported this week that one of Reid’s main objectives against Miami is to reduce Walker’s workload “a little bit” (Nate Taylor, ESPN, September 24). The player is not asking for the relief.

“He wants a ball every play, Ken does, and he’s not asking to be relieved or anything else.”

— Andy Reid, Monday video conference, via Pro Football Talk, September 22

The running backs coach, DeMarco Murray, put the difficulty of the substitution plainly: “I want Kenneth to get into a groove, and it’s hard to kind of take him out” (via ESPN, September 24). Emmett Johnson, the rookie, has 103 all-purpose yards on 14 touches, and the offensive coordinator, Eric Bieniemy, has said Johnson’s role “is to continue to grow as the season progresses.” Sunday, against a Miami defense that has allowed 62 points in two games, is the game that shows whether the balance is a plan or a talking point.

The pass rush. Four sacks in two games is not a pass rush. Miami has allowed nine. If the Chiefs cannot get home against this line, the question follows them into the bye.

Penalties. Fifteen for 146 yards through two games. A game the Chiefs won by three should have been won by more, and the flags are why.

Achane. Miami’s one genuine weapon. Kansas City held Denver to 61 rushing yards in Week 1, then gave up 119 to the Colts.

What to watch beyond Sunday

The Raiders are the other 2-0 team in the AFC West and nobody outside Kansas City is talking about them. Las Vegas has scored 53 points and allowed 27, a differential that beats the Chiefs’ by two. The feed still seeds Kansas City first in the AFC and the Raiders fifth, which is a division winner’s privilege rather than a verdict on the two teams. Denver is 1-1 and the Chargers are 0-2, so the West looks like a two-team race for as long as Las Vegas keeps winning.

Then comes the bye in Week 5, which makes Week 4 the last game before the staff gets a week to sort out the tackle situation, Norman-Lott’s return, and Johnson’s role. Reid’s own framing was wary. “There’s too much parity in this league,” he said (AP preview, September 24), and the standings bear him out: three other AFC teams are also 2-0.

The honest summary of the first two weeks is that the Chiefs have fixed what they set out to fix and have not fixed what they did not set out to fix. The run game is real, the offense leads the league in yards, and the record is clean. The penalties, the red-zone touchdown rate, and a four-sack pass rush are all still sitting there. Sunday in Miami is a game the Chiefs are expected to win comfortably, and it will not tell them much about whether those problems are solved. The weeks after it will.

Sources

PRH | huffmanwrites.org | © Philip Huffman