Five ways I'd try to improve the Chiefs' offense after the bye

Looking at a few things Reid and company could tweak to try and get things back on track for the 2023 offense.

What once seemed like an absurd premise is now a well-accepted fact; The 2023 Kansas City Chiefs are better on defense than on offense, and it’s not really very close at this point.

Following years of dominance (the Chiefs have been a top-3 offense in DVOA literally every season of the Patrick Mahomes era, including a league-best last year after trading away Tyreek Hill), Kansas City’s offense through the first 9 week of the season has been… fine, I guess. It’s been OK. Not bad. But not great.

And frankly, the overall statistics do the Chiefs some favors. On a game by game basis, there are examples of the defense having to bail out the offense, whether its early in games as the offense struggled to keep it close (Jags), late in games when the offense failed to put an opponent away (Jets, Chargers, Vikings, Dolphins), or both (Broncos). In case you didn’t notice that list includes 6 of the Chiefs’ 7 wins, with their only blowout coming against the Bears.

It’s worth noting there have been flashes of business as usual in the Chiefs offense (early in the Chargers and Dolphins game, the Bears game, and stretches of the Vikings game being the best examples), but overall Mahomes and company have been markedly worse than any of his previous five seasons at quarterback. And by choosing to stand pat at the trade deadline (an understandable but frustrating decision), they now need to look in-house for answers.

Of course, the simple answer is “Mahomes needs to play better” or “the receivers need to do a better job getting open” or “the OL needs to improve against stunts.” Obviously any of those things would increase offensive output. But there are some easy buttons that the Chiefs could push that are at least worth trying to get things going and steal a few positive plays per game.

With that in mind, here are five ways I would look to help the offense get back into the swing of things down the stretch, with the primary goal being to up consistency and explosiveness. Let’s talk a few personnel and scheme tweaks I’d make if I were Andy Reid.