The Kansas City Chiefs’ wide receiver group has been the subject of the team’s 2023 season thus far, even as the club is off to a 7-2 start to the year. A Week 10 bye didn’t change that, as questions about the wideouts came back up on Thursday morning and afternoon.
Kansas City’s usual high-powered offense with Andy Reid calling the shots and Patrick Mahomes under center has still been good, but also far from its normal level of play. Part of the blame can be chalked up to the aforementioned duo or elements such as offensive line play, but a lot of it falls on the team’s 2023 wide receiver unit. The collection of pass catchers (sans tight end Travis Kelce) hasn’t generated enough separation nor hung on to passes from Mahomes consistently enough, leading to many wondering whether this iteration of the offense is enough for the Chiefs to win a Super Bowl.
Taking the podium on Thursday before Kansas City’s Week 11 game against the Philadelphia Eagles on Monday Night Football, Reid insisted that the receivers are improving.
“They’re getting better as we go,” Reid said. “I know it’s hard to see, but they’re getting better. We’ll just see how it goes [moving] forward. Anything I say isn’t going to mean anything unless they continue to improve. But we’re seeing improvement, we’ve just got to keep it going.”
Nine games into the Chiefs’ season, only Kelce has over 500 receiving yards (597). The next-closest contributor is rookie Rashee Rice at 378, highlighting how much of a gap there is between the most dominant weapon on offense and the drop-off to someone else. Veteran Justin Watson seems to be the next trusted option within the offense, with players such as Marquez Valdes-Scantling, Kadarius Toney and Skyy Moore failing to take steps up this year. The by-committee approach pitched before the beginning of the season hasn’t panned out.
While the Chiefs’ plan at wideout still has yet to pay off, the team opted to stand pat at the trade deadline earlier late last month. There’s a general expectation that things will improve coming out of the bye week, with Mahomes himself echoing the same sentiments as his head coach. According to the reigning NFL MVP, Kansas City is making progress despite the numbers not necessarily indicating so.
“I’ve always felt like throughout the season, the chemistry gets better and better,” Mahomes said. “Obviously everybody wants the receivers to blow up and everything like that, but I think guys have gotten better as the season’s gone on and they’ll continue to get better. We’re making strides in the right direction, and I think we’ll keep doing that as the season goes and hopefully carry that momentum into the playoffs.”
Moving forward, a lot of pressure is on Mahomes to elevate his receivers. It’s a burden that many superstar-level players throughout all team sports have carried, so it isn’t completely unrealistic. He hopes that Week 11 will be a good bridge between everyone’s progress made before and during the bye. Others are matching his energy, which leaves the Chiefs with some hope left for an offensive spark to come soon.
“All you can do is go out there and try to be great every single day,” Mahomes said. “That’s what I try to do in practice, getting extra reps. And then [getting] into the game and try to make those adjustments on the fly. I push guys to give everything they have every single day and luckily for me, I have a lot of guys like that on the team. At the end of the day, you’ve just got to go and keep at it, stay with the process and at the end of the year, you’re satisfied with the results.”
