One possible reason the Chiefs offense is not working properly

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Halfway through the 2023 season, the Chiefs offense has yet to show enough consistency from one game to the next.

Heading into a bye week, they have dropped to seventh in the NFL regarding yards-per-game, posting fewer than 300 total yards in back-to-back contests.

Even though the Chiefs currently sit third in the NFL in passing yards per game (264.9), a lot of the blame for their offensive struggles is being directed towards the receiving corps.

While he had his worst game of the season statistically in Frankfurt last weekend, Travis Kelce has still been the key contributor through the air with a team-high 57 catches for 597 yards and four touchdowns.

Rashee Rice is having a fine rookie season, second on the Chiefs in receiving yards, and tied with Kelce for TD catches this year, having found the end zone in the victory over Miami.

Mahomes sharing the Wealth

Since Tyreek Hill left for South Beach, we’ve seen the offense utilize plenty of players in running and passing plays with varying levels of success.

That being said, in their Super Bowl triumph during the 2022 campaign, the primary workload in the receiving department centred around four players: Kelce, JuJu Smith-Schuster, Marquez Valdez-Scantling and Jerick McKinnon.

Those four had over 70 targets each and more than 40 catches.

The other 12 players who caught a pass for the Chiefs in the 2022 regular season, including Patrick Mahomes, had 34 targets or fewer with 28 grabs or fewer.

Fast forward to the 2023 campaign, and Mahomes continues to spread the ball around to numerous receivers each game.

As a matter of fact, in the victory over Miami, Mahomes found 10 different players for at least one catch.

Mahomes has reached that mark for the sixth time in his NFL career, the most of any quarterback in the Super Bowl Era.

For those who believe Mahomes lacks faith in his receivers, that stat, along with the number of receivers targeted in each game in 2023, should refute this notion.

Too Many Cooks in the Chiefs Offensive Kitchen?

It’s been another successful season for the Chiefs to date so there can’t be too many complaints.

However, the offense isn’t firing on all cylinders like in seasons past.

Conventional wisdom would suggest that you want to involve as many players as possible offensively to keep the defense guessing.

However, in the Chiefs case, it appears that involving all of your receivers with two or three passes a game may be doing the opposition a favour.

In each of their games this year, five or more players have registered fewer than 40 yards through the air, and none of the short gains have struck any fear in opposing secondaries.

Everyone knows who the main guy is in Kansas City, but just like Rob Gronkowski and Tom Brady during their time together, no one’s been able to slow down Mahomes and Kelce much since they became teammates.

We saw how successful and deadly the offense could be when Kelce and Tyreek Hill were getting all of the looks.

Perhaps it’s time for the Chiefs to go back to that old format with Rashee Rice coming in as wide receiver #1.

They have a week to try and find their way and figure out how to be more consistent offensively.