There aren’t many (if any) coaches in the NFL with a long and established career on offense like that of Andy Reid. He has been a head coach in the NFL for 18 years and has basically been running his version of the West Coast Offense that entire time. If you take away his first year coaching which was a clear statistical outlier his offense has been pretty consistent. In his other 13 seasons in Philadelphia his offense averaged exactly 332 completed passes per season. In his four seasons as Kansas City’s head coach his offense has averaged exactly 332 completed passes per season. You don’t get much more consistent than that.
In my post last year the number one argument I got to the numbers that I laid out was that if Kansas City had another elite wide receiver they would extend more drives and therefore it would create more completions than in previous seasons. My argument is that over 17 seasons his numbers have been incredibly consistent. To expect that Kansas City would become a huge statistical outlier next season just because they drafted a wide receiver in the first round is unrealistic. In fact, last season was already one of Reid’s highest totals for completed passes. The Chiefs ended the season with 365 completions which was the second highest of Reid’s head coaching career. That number was significantly higher than any season of the Donovan McNabb era in Philly and 33 completions higher than his average.
I think we can all agree that this was in large part due to the fact that the Chiefs didn’t have the running game that they would have liked. I would argue that the Kansas City offense would be better served in 2017 if the running game made a resurgence which would likely mean the pass completions would drop back closer to Reid’s norm. If that’s the case there just aren’t enough passes to go around for a first round wide receiver to be worth the investment.
Last season the Chiefs had a spike in completions and their “number one receiver” had a down year. Due to injuries, Jeremy Maclin was limited to twelve games and only had 44 receptions. So assuming that Maclin stays healthy the Chiefs are already going to have to figure a way to get him some more catches in 2017. Last year it was tight end Travis Kelce that was the Chiefs true number one target. His 85 receptions led the team followed by Tyreek Hill with 61 receptions. Kelce and Hill are the two most explosive weapons that the Chiefs have. Does anyone here want them to touch the ball less in 2017?
I don’t think so.
Another consistent staple of Reid’s offense is passes to the running backs out of the back field. In his four seasons in Kansas City the Chiefs have averaged about 75 completions to running backs (including the fullback) per season. Last year the Chiefs completed 70 passes to backs and I don’t see that number dropping much as long as Reid is calling the plays and Alex Smith is the quarterback. So let’s pencil in 85 catches for Kelce, 60 for Hill, and 70 combined for the running backs. Let’s say Maclin stays relatively healthy this season but his days as a true number one are behind him. I still think he’s good enough to get 60 receptions in a season.
85 + 60 + 70 + 60 = 275 receptions
To make the math easy, let’s say the Chiefs are going to top Reid’s career average in completions again next season and set the target number at 350 completions.
That leaves us 75 more receptions to work with.
Who still needs some targets?