Is it the line, or the running back?

[Chris Meck]

Originally Posted by RunKC

OL was worse when Charles was in this offense. Didn’t matter.

OL was roughly the same when Hunt was in this offense. Wasn’t a problem.

There’s your answer

1) Charles was one of the best broken play runners I ever saw. That's a VERY unusual ability. Walter Payton, Barry Sanders kind of shit. Very few RB's are great at that.

2) No, Hunt didn't run behind roughly the same line. This is a myth I keep seeing repeated. Morse>Reiter. LDT pre injury>LDT post injury. Wylie is a dumpster fire. So 2/3 of your interior line is different and/or lesser than their former self.

[RunKC]

Originally Posted by Chris Meck

1) Charles was one of the best broken play runners I ever saw. That's a VERY unusual ability. Walter Payton, Barry Sanders kind of shit. Very few RB's are great at that.

2) No, Hunt didn't run behind roughly the same line. This is a myth I keep seeing repeated. Morse>Reiter. LDT pre injury>LDT post injury. Wylie is a dumpster fire. So 2/3 of your interior line is different and/or lesser than their former self.

Damien also had Rankin and Wiz, who played well for us. But we knew going into this season that Damien was fighting a nagging injury and I think that played a big role in his struggles for awhile.

We all miss having a bigger, stronger agile back like Hunt who can drag defenders 3 or 4 yards up the middle while having the agility to make people miss and breakaway. Damien just doesn’t have that hard nosed mentality like Hunt did to run through LB’s and break a ton of tackles.

That’s why so many of us like Zach Moss. I would take a look at him if you haven’t already. He remains a lot of us of Hunt.

[The Franchise]

Originally Posted by RunKC

Damien also had Rankin and Wiz, who played well for us. But we knew going into this season that Damien was fighting a nagging injury and I think that played a big role in his struggles for awhile.

We all miss having a bigger, stronger agile back like Hunt who can drag defenders 3 or 4 yards up the middle while having the agility to make people miss and breakaway. Damien just doesn’t have that hard nosed mentality like Hunt did to run through LB’s and break a ton of tackles.

That’s why so many of us like Zach Moss. I would take a look at him if you haven’t already. He remains a lot of us of Hunt.

Dude it’s not like Rankin played a ton of games for us. And if you’ll notice....our running game was better when Wiz was starting.....which would mean that offensive line play is more important.

[RunKC]

Originally Posted by The Franchise

Dude it’s not like Rankin played a ton of games for us. And if you’ll notice....our running game was better when Wiz was starting.....which would mean that offensive line play is more important.

Old ass McCoy was running just fine for us in the first half of the season (minus fumbles).

10 carries-8.1 avg
8 carries-6.8 avg
11 carries-5.1 avg
8 carries-5.5 avg
12 carries-5.3 avg
9 carries-4.4 avg

I still think our struggles were McCoy fumbling and Damien coming off a nagging injury.

Throw the Colts game out too. No Tyreek, no Sammy, Pat’s ankle was ****ed and he couldn’t move. Of course they stopped the run. We were completely one dimensional.

[RealSNR]

I agree that Damien Williams isn't a feature back, but he does a lot of nifty things, and as long as he's supported by a strong committee of other RBs, I think the Chiefs can do pretty well with him as the starter, or at least the one who gets the most carries.

The problem I see right now is I think a few people are getting ahead of themselves a bit. Even if we draft a dude who's really good, Andy might not play him all that much, at least initially. The Chiefs had every intention of making Spencer Ware the opening day starter in 2017, not Kareem Hunt. Ware knew the offense, the protections, and he was probably a better asset to what Andy wanted to accomplish through the pass. You saw the same thing this past season. Not saying Darwin Thompson is a world beater by any means, but Andy didn't give him any kind of snaps on offense until weeks 14 and beyond, and even then you could hardly say he was getting work as a the 2nd or 3rd guy in a true RBBC.

If we draft Dobbins with our 1st rounder or somebody like that, we may not see what people are dreaming of until much later in the season or possibly even the following year.

While yes, getting a Kareem Hunt clone would make us truly unbeatable, throwing high draft capital at it (a 1st, 2nd, 3rd rounder) doesn't guarantee that will happen. If we pulled the trigger on OL with one of those picks, however, I think we WOULD be more likely to see legit gains and improvement, because we're no longer stuck building the team one particular way with our draft hopes targeting one particular position at such a ridiculous level.

[RealSNR]

Originally Posted by RunKC

OL was worse when Charles was in this offense. Didn’t matter.

OL was roughly the same when Hunt was in this offense. Wasn’t a problem.

There’s your answer

Here's my problem with this kind of reasoning, though. The same can be done for the other side.

The Chiefs were a much more effective rushing team the 2nd half of 2015 than they were in the first half. The first few games featured spot starts from Fulton and Jah Reid, and Mitch Morse was just a rookie who had played OT at Mizzou just the previous year. Keep in mind we went into that season thinking that Ben Grubbs was going to solidify the LG position, and we abruptly cut him during the season when we realized he was a broke dick by that point. The OL was in shambles, and the Chiefs went 1-5 to start the year.

They were a much more effective running team in the second half because the line gelled together. Andy had a grand experiment of trying out Zach Fulton at C in the preseason, and that's what started him down the path of earning that huge contract from Houston. Largely because he was really freaking good when he started for Morse, who, if I remember correctly, was playing through an injury before he went on IR.

Great OL plus bad RB doesn't work. Great OL plus average RB is usually pretty good. Average OL plus great RB is usually great (like it was with Kareem Hunt). Bad OL plus great RB usually depends on the situation, but it's typically a recipe for an unreliable running game that's okay against bad defenses and horrible against great defenses.

And then you add in the wrinkle that we have Andy freaking Reid. His offenses, especially Mahomes, no matter how you slice it, will always pass to set up the run and not the other way around.

[DaneMcCloud]

Originally Posted by RunKC

OL was worse when Charles was in this offense. Didn’t matter.

OL was roughly the same when Hunt was in this offense. Wasn’t a problem.

There’s your answer

This.

It's the running back, not the offensive line.