The Kansas City Chiefs sit at 13-1, atop the AFC with a 1.5-game lead over the field. With that said, they may have to win two of their remaining three games to secure the one-seed and a bye heading into the postseason.
Kansas City has received reinforcements in Isiah Pacheco and Charles Omenihu over the past few weeks to help with this effort. The good news is that they figure to get another player back this week: Marquise “Hollywood” Brown. The wide receiver’s return should elevate the offense by fixing some current warts.
The Chiefs planned to have Brown, Xavier Worthy and Rashee Rice as their wide receiver trio entering the season. Unfortunately, Rice is out for the season but the team brought in DeAndre Hopkins to fill the void. While Hopkins doesn’t bring the same dynamic ability that Rice has at this stage, we may finally see what the Chiefs envisioned in the offseason when building the room.
One noticeable thing with the offense is the lack of speed outside of Worthy. At this stage of his career, Travis Kelce no longer scares defenses vertically, and neither do the rest of the tight ends. Hopkins has never been a speedster and JuJu Smith-Schuster no longer has the juice he had earlier on. Justin Watson is theoretically a speed threat, but his speed comes from a build-up. He needs 10 to 20 yards to reach that gear, so it isn’t effective in short areas.
Brown brings another weapon with elite speed. When he and Worthy are on the field together, which should be a lot in the playoffs, teams will have to worry about either going vertical. The Chiefs have thrown deep (at least 20 yards downfield) 42 times this season. Sixteen of those tries have gone to Worthy. They don’t have a secondary option that they like throwing the ball deep to. The return of Brown will offer them options.
Another place where Brown’s speed helps is when teams blitz. Patrick Mahomes’s passer rating against the blitz is the lowest of his career by almost 10 points. This can be attributed to the drop in offensive line play and the fact that the receivers don’t have the ability to win quickly in their routes. Brown’s ability to do so can help Mahomes against blitz looks.
Lastly, teams have been able to play man coverage against the Chiefs more often because they aren’t afraid of the weapons beating them consistently. Last year, Brown had a yard-per-route run mark of 1.96 against man coverage. That would be the best of any of the current pass catchers this season. Brown’s ability to separate against single matchups could help eliminate some of the coverage pressures and sacks that have occurred this season. He can provide a man-beating weapon the Chiefs desperately need to make the defenses think twice about playing man.
Brown’s return can be the boost the Kansas City offense has been looking for all season. They flipped a switch in the postseason last year and if they can do it again with his addition, the offense can be humming when it matters the most.
