After an entire offseason and preseason full of questions facing the Chiefs' running back room, the Week 1 result looked pretty good, all things considered. The team utilized all three backs – Clyde Edwards-Helaire, Isiah Pacheco, and Jerick McKinnon – in unique and different ways, which clearly helped the offense stay balanced throughout the blowout win. While speaking to 610's Cody and Gold on Wednesday, The Athletic's Chiefs reporter Nate Taylor explained why it's a strategy the team should continue using during, at the very least, this early portion of the season.
"Yeah, and I think it's what they should do moving forward until somebody clearly takes a hold of the job," he said. "Now maybe that's Clyde, because he had such a great start against the Cardinals. But I wrote about this in The Athletic, those three running backs combined for 126 rushing yards, which had occurred only four times last year, where they got 125 yards from the running back. So it makes the job of the quarterback easier, because Mahomes doesn't have to lead the team in passing and rushing, which happened quite a bit last year. But man, I think them giving the ball to Pacheco, and him getting confidence and early results – he's only going to get better. So they have a real 1-2 punch, and I still love Jerick McKinnon on screen passes."
You can listen to Taylor's entire interview in the embedded player below:
