Chiefs’ Jonathan Baldwin Has To Play To Produce

Benny Sieu-US PRESSWIRE

The Kansas City Chiefs looked pretty good on offense for the first half of Sunday’s loss to the Atlanta Falcons. However, once the game was over, many fans were asking the same question.

Where was Jonathan Baldwin?

It is understandable. Baldwin was the offseason star and most fans were expecting big things from him this season. Unfortunately, Baldwin didn’t do much in his limited preseason action and Sunday against the Falcons, he was nowhere to be seen.

Baldwin may be struggling to make the leap from potential to production, but fans shouldn’t be too worried about the receivers lack of catches on Sunday because, well, he was hardly on the field.

According to Pro Football Focus, Baldwin was only on the field for 22 of the team’s 69 offensive snaps. Of those 22 snaps, only 12 were pass plays. Matt Cassel never targeted Baldwin.

Baldwin surely has work to do. He only played half the season in 2011 and most of those games were with Tyler Palko and Kyle Orton at QB. He clearly put in the work in the offseason to improve his game and while we would all like immediate results, the truth of the matter is that the Chiefs might be better off early on by giving some extra snaps to veteran Steve Breaston.

Also, keep in mind that Chiefs offensive coordinator Brian Daboll is all about creating matchup advantages for his offense. Baldwin, given his height, is almost always a matchup advantage so it likely won’t be long before Daboll finds a way to use him.

All that being said, Baldwin will have to get meaningful snaps before he can produce. His time will likely come. Right now, however, Chiefs fans should feel fortunate that QB Matt Cassel has plenty of other weapons to spread the ball around to.