Chiefs Urged to Hire New Coach Away From Andy Reid’s Tree For Fixing Patrick Mahomes’ Offense

Chiefs Urged to Hire New Coach Away From Andy Reid’s Tree For Fixing Patrick Mahomes’ Offense

In the last part of a very important Sunday night game against the Houston Texans, Kansas City Chiefs coach Andy Reid made a surprising choice he had never made before in his long 27-year career. This choice ended up being the key reason the Chiefs lost the game 20-10, and has since fueled analyst Ben Solak to urge for a coaching change.

Clay Harbor gives his picks for this weeks slate of games

“I would love for the Chiefs to add an offensive coach from outside of the Reid tree this offseason. Go get one of Ben Johnson’s myriad assistants in Chicago. Follow the Dan Campbell arc and hire some position coaches from the college ranks. Infuse this running game with new ideas,” he said.

The Chiefs, led by Andy Reid and the transcendent Patrick Mahomes, have been the ultimate flag-bearers for the pass-first offensive movement, consistently leading the league in Pass Rate Over Expectation since 2018. While maximizing the use of the game’s best quarterback is a sound strategy, the Chiefs have taken this philosophy to an unsustainable extreme that is now affecting their overall performance.

Mahomes’ record-setting number of quick throws (under 1.5 seconds) this season points to an over-reliance on pre-scripted, short-yardage concepts. This pass-heavy approach is compounded by a predictable offense where receiver personnel are siloed: the team must field poor blockers like JuJu Smith-Schuster and Noah Gray to run screens and RPOs, limiting their threat, while dynamic playmakers like Xavier Worthy and Rashee Rice are left with insufficient runway.

The Chiefs’ rushing attack is too easy to predict because they almost always line up in the Shotgun formation. They run the ball just enough to gain a few yards on short downs, but their running plays are not built for big gains, having the fewest “explosive runs” of any team since 2000. As they constantly use the Shotgun for runs, their running backs can’t get going downhill, resulting in a very inefficient average of only 3.6 yards per carry.

Ultimately, this lack of rushing respect from opposing defenses prevents the Chiefs from forcing safeties near the line of scrimmage, thereby reducing the available space Mahomes needs to attack the secondary and leaving the entire offense predictable and unbalanced.

Mahomes’ struggles on Sunday marked a new critical low in his career
Quarterback Patrick Mahomes had a very poor game. He only completed 42.4% of his passes, meaning less than half of his throws were caught by his teammates. This performance shocked everyone, as people are used to him playing brilliantly. But it wasn’t Mahomes’ sole decision but rather Reid’s, as he admitted he was wrong. As he said;

“I put the offense in a bad spot with those fourth-down plays. I was trying to be too aggressive. I take all the blame for that. I thought we could make it. You have to use your chances. Looking back, it was the wrong call. I messed that one up.”