Last season’s failure to make the play-offs left Kansas City and, in particular, their offence open to real criticism for the first time in the Patrick Mahomes era.
Is Patrick Mahomes past his best?
When will Travis Kelce retire and become an actor?
After week 1, though, the arrival of one player may have quelled those queries for another year.
By signing Kenneth Walker in free agency, the Chiefs not only got the Super Bowl MVP but also a star who could give them their first 1,000-yard running back in nearly ten years.
In only his first game, the former Michigan State man ran for over 170 yards and scored two touchdowns. For context, it had been 694 days since the Chiefs ran for over 170 yards in a game as a team. Not a bad first day of work.
It’s very rare you get the chance to sign one of the top players from a championship-winning team in any sport. The closest comparison might be Leicester City’s Premier League triumph: they managed to hold on to Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez but lost N’Golo Kante. Like Kante, Walker could be described as the engine room of the Seahawks team that won it all last season.
Walker leaving the Super Bowl champions and heading to Missouri caused quite a stir. But because of his position, it was almost expected that when he lifted the Lombardi back in February, that would be the last time we would see him in navy and neon.
In 2025, the average salary of running backs was the third-lowest of any position in the NFL, meaning they earned less on average than kickers. Even though quarterbacks are the only players who touch the ball more often, running backs are not paid anything close to their ball-throwing compatriots.
The reason for this pay disparity becomes more noticeable when you consider the outcome of those touches. Quarterbacks may throw the ball upwards of 35 times a game; they might get hit or sacked on fewer than 10% of those plays.
Running backs, on the other hand, will be taken out one way or another virtually every time they touch the ball. Add in all the hits they have taken in high school and college; it would be fair to say it is probably the most physically taxing position on the field.
This, unsurprisingly, is not conducive to a long injury-free career.
Still, the running back position has had a resurgence over the past few years. Since the start of the 2020s, three tailbacks have won the NFL Offensive Player of the Year: Derrick Henry, Christian McCaffrey and Saquon Barkley.
Yet even among the best runners of the decade, the stigma surrounding the position has proved difficult to escape.
Barkley left the Giants due to them not wanting to pay him after injury issues, while the Panthers traded McCaffrey as they regretting the massive contract paid to him as the team disintegrated around him.
While Henry would win his gong with the Titans before they eventually felt the need to cut bait on his huge salary and sent him to free agency.
Even for the league’s best, the constant churn and debate over whether paying them what they deserve is worthwhile remains inescapable, even after they prove their value.
Running back tandems are also becoming increasingly popular as teams like the Bears, Vikings and Steelers have all found success taking a more moneyball-style approach of using two or three backs to replicate the production of one star at a fraction of the price.After the last two years of inefficient tandems for the Chiefs, Andy Reid had clearly had enough of doing it the hard way and pushed his chips all in by bringing in Walker.
He witnessed the landscape shifting firsthand when the Eagles ground game helped dismantle his Chiefs in Super Bowl 59 and no doubt saw a similar story unfold in Super Bowl 60.
They are going to go from one of the league’s most pass-happy offences since Mahomes arrived on the scene to one that can do just as much damage on the ground as it can in the air.
A warning shot was fired to the rest of the NFL on Monday night that the Chiefs are not going anywhere.
Even if the alternate acronym for the NFL, “Not For Long”, applies particularly harshly to running backs, the Chiefs will be hoping this running-back renaissance lasts just long enough to bring a few more Lombardi Trophies to Kansas City.
Three NFL games to watch this weekend:
Denver Broncos vs Jacksonville Jaguars
Two surprise division winners from last season with elite defences and exciting offences. Sign me up.
Chicago Bears vs Minnesota Vikings
Ninety-eight points between them in week 1 – can we get another shootout in week 2?
LA Rams vs New York Giants
The Giants, fresh from the shock result of week one, take on the Super Bowl favourites in primetime.