Chiefs playoff X-factors, part 1: Pacheco and Toney help make the offense even scarier
Both the rookie RB and 2nd-year WR weren't around last year, and are a crucial part of Kansas City's offense having a higher ceiling... and floor.
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The Chiefs have secured the #1 seed in the AFC. After an offseason in which their demise was predicted by many due to trading away Tyreek Hill and the AFC West arms race , Patrick Mahomes and company find themselves back in the same ol’ spot… the driver’s seat for the Super Bowl.
There are a lot of things to talk about surrounding the Chiefs’ 2022 season. How they managed to stay the most productive offense in the NFL after losing its most explosive playmaker. How Patrick Mahomes is on his way to a second MVP award after putting up cartoonish stats while surrounded by an almost all-new supporting cast. How Travis Kelce is continuing to make his case as the GOAT tight end. How Chris Jones is a DPOY candidate. You get the idea. There’s a lot to celebrate from a great regular season. Going 14-3 in what was supposed to be a “retooling” year is incredible.
But I don’t want to talk about that. Instead, I want to talk about what comes next. The Chiefs face a very, very tough group of AFC opponents if they want to return to the Super Bowl, and there are a number of players beyond their trio of superstars who will play a pivotal role in determining how far they go. I want to talk about them in the upcoming weeks, starting with two of my favorite new additions in 2022; Isiah Pacheco and Kadarius Toney.
Pacheco and Toney’s path to the Chiefs was obviously quite different (one being a 7th rounder, another former 1st rounder acquired via trade), but both of them share something in common; They play a pivotal role in making the offense not just better, but different than it was in last season’s playoffs. And that could be crucial in ensuring that things end differently this year for Kansas City. Let’s talk about that.
We’ll start with Toney, who has a unique skillset that adds a dynamic the Chiefs have needed this year. And we’ll finish (that word is not an accident) with Pacheco, a player who has a skillset that the Chiefs have missed over the last several seasons.
With Toney, I’ll lead with the most obvious but perhaps most important trait he has; The ability to create yards out of thin air. Look at his jet sweep touchdown from a “dots” perspective.
The reason the dots add so much context here is becomes much more apparent how tough it was for Toney to pick up positive yardage here, let alone a touchdown. Keep in mind this is designed for him to get to the edge, with Kelce helping Brown hold the DE inside before climbing to the next level. However, the DE recognizes does a nice job getting upfield. This creates a tough situation for Toney moving towards the sideline. Look at where things stood as the play was developing.
Because the DE keeps himself outside and gets up the field, Toney can’t turn the corner. Which means he has to cut inside and right towards an unblocked defender, not to mention another unblocked defender pursuing from the other side of the field (and a defensive lineman who, while having a lineman on him, is still providing some backside pursuit).
What all that means is that the only way Toney can get positive yardage is to make the first unblocked defender miss, but do it so quickly that he doesn’t get caught by the backside pursuit and still follow his blockers to the edge (just at the second level). He then has to have enough burst to get to the end zone AND enough strength to power through a hit right at the goal line. That’s the only path to a TD. And it’s exactly what he does.
Toney is, as we talked about when reviewing his film with the Giants, a unique mover. He’s quite fast, but not blindingly so. He’s quite quick, but not freakishly so. However, he moves in such a strange, jittery, can-stop-start-from-any-angle way that he’s impossible to corral in space. He also has more strength and balance through contact than one would expect. That combination of skills (and his natural feel for how the play is developing) makes him very, very tough to tackle once he has the ball in his hands.
As Toney has learned the ropes in Reid’s offense, that skillset has allowed them to use him creatively.
Kansas City has lined Toney up in the backfield at times over the last several weeks, which puts defenses in a tough spot given his varied skillset. Here, they run a nifty counter action after threatening an option play the other direction. Toney follows his blockers well and runs with patience and quickness. But he also fights like crazy for extra yardage once the defenders get their hands on him.
Utilizing Toney in this manner puts teams in a bind. They have to fear him coming out of the backfield as a receiver, and him being aligned there can allow for some mismatches if he does so (as he showed last week). But he’s a legitimate threat to run the ball as well, and isn’t a typical “only if the blocking is great” receiver on handoffs given his natural ability behind blockers and in space.
Toney’s skillset allows the Chiefs to be more varied on offense than one would have expected with Hill gone (and Hardman currently still inactive, though that’s likely to change in the playoffs). The ability to line him up all over the field and motion him anywhere lets Mahomes get a better look at what defenses are doing, and the variance in formations and play calls utilizing him makes them that much tougher to gameplan for. And that’s leaving out the way he can contribute as a receiver (bottom of the screen).
Toney runs one of the most ridiculous whip routes in the league with his natural fluidity and explosion, and it results in an easy first down here. The yards after catch (and humiliating juke) are gravy, but the ability to separate is something that he’s shown repeatedly in his career when healthy. And that’s something the Chiefs desperately need outside of Kelce and Juju Smith-Schuster. And as I wrote about earlier this season, his ball skills are exceptional and have him playing much “bigger” as a downfield threat than one would expect.
If Toney remains healthy in the playoffs (that’s always been the issue for him), he raises both the ceiling and the floor of the offense. The ceiling gets raised thanks to his ability to make big plays down the field and help the offense be more varied (catching opponents by surprise is half the battle). And the floor gets raised thanks to his ability to create yards out of nothing and create separation without being schemed open. That makes him one of the biggest X-factors on the team for the playoffs.
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But what about Pacheco? I’m glad you asked. Because while we’ve talked about it here before, it bears repeating; Pacheco’s skillset combination is one the Chiefs’ have desperately needed over the last several years. The first part of that is being a good enough runner to punish teams for “cheating” against the pass and playing off the line of scrimmage.
This isn’t an obvious “light box” play like we’ve highlighted before, but it’s demonstrative of another way teams play the Chiefs that a runner like Pacheco can punish. While the Raiders are technically playing seven guys in the box, one of them is a secondary player rather than a linebacker. Additionally, all 3 of their defenders positioned as ‘backers are about as far back as you’ll see in the box on 1st and 10.
Now, watch the defenders at the second level at the snap. Only one of them moves forward (well, technically 37 moves towards contain, but still) towards the potential run to Pacheco. The linebackers stay flatfooted or moving laterally, clearly anticipating a play fake. What that means is when Pacheco is about to hit the line of scrimmage with a head of steam, they’re still multiple yards back and haven’t really picked up momentum of their own.
The difference between Pacheco and Clyde Edwards-Helaire (or any non-McKinnon RB the Chiefs have utilized the last several years) is that he’s got the acceleration to that hole a half-second faster, which means the linebackers don’t get a chance to recover in these moments. And what separates him from McKinnon is that once he makes contact with the linebackers he’s able to drive through them for multiple yards.
Kansas City hasn’t had a runner with his combination of explosion and power since Kareem Hunt was cut, and it’s prevented them from fully taking advantage of the way teams play them. Frankly, Reid hasn’t utilized Pacheco to his fullest potential yet. But that “make them pay” ability helps raise the floor of the offense in that you see fewer negative plays and and least a small jump in the times Kansas City will run the ball in an advantageous moment.
Additionally, Pacheco’s hard-charging run style gives the Chiefs an ability to run when it’s an obvious time to run or out of obvious formations. A good example of this came prior to the end of the first half. The Chiefs were looking to move the ball and score prior to halftime but also wanted to burn enough clock to prevent the Raiders from attempting to do the same. And one of the ways to do that is to just ram the ball down their throat for 5 yards.
The Chiefs aren’t trying to hide what they’re doing here. They have 3 tight ends all on the line, and their only receiver in the game is Justin Watson. But even then, the Raiders’ LB’s are a step slow to charge the line (fearing a play action shot, which KC has used more from under center lately to largely positive results) and the Chiefs just power forward.
The ability to lower your head and just drive forward with your blockers for an extra yard or two may seem like a small thing, but again, it’s about the ability to do multiple things well on offense and perform in a variety of situations. Remember the term we used with Toney? “Varied.” And Pacheco’s presence leads to that because they can succeed out of formations and with plays they couldn’t succeed previously (at least with consistency).
And then, of course, there’s the fact that Pacheco has enough explosion to make big plays if the holes are there, especially now that he’s improved in his patience and how he reads his blocking.
This just isn’t the sort of run we’ve seen from the Chiefs over the last several years. Pacheco takes the handoff and does an excellent job sifting through how the play develops. He sees that the outside edge isn’t there and cuts inside, then presses far enough straight ahead to keep the DT inside. Once that happens he cuts back out and explodes to the second level. You can see once he’s there how his next gear alters the angle of the safety and grabs additional yardage.
Similarly to Toney, Pacheco raises the floor and the ceiling of the offense. The ceiling comes from the way he can make explosive plays (sound familiar?) and allow the Chiefs to open up the playbook in all situations (again, sound familiar?). The floor comes in how he can get tough yards when things have ground to a halt and give Mahomes a mental/physical break on the rare occasions the MVP struggles.
It’s incredibly hard to win the Super Bowl, and the majority of the burden will rest on Reid/Mahomes/Kelce/Jones. But the Chiefs ARE a different team than they were last year, and a big part of that is the presence of Pacheco and Toney. We’ll talk about more of those “other” X-factor guys in the coming week, but don’t be surprised if what these two can do is the difference in at least one game in January (or hey, maybe even February).
If Mahomes and MVS can start syncing up on deep balls better the offense is going insanely scary beyond what it already is. Feels like there were about half a dozen missed TDs over the season where they weren't connecting
As a primarily substack app user, I really appreciated having embedded .gifs in the article instead of tweets that bump me over to twitter when I play them. I don't know if that's a time-saver or if it's harder but I like being able to read the analysis, watch the play and flip back and forth like that. Great work!