When the Kansas City Chiefs started out the 2017 season at 5-0 and were the talk of the NFL, rookie running back Kareem Hunt was a big reason why. Hunt wasn’t just good to start the season; he was ALL-TIME good. Hunt literally set records for yardage—both rushing and all purpose—to start the season, and every week it seemed like he set another one.
However, as the Chiefs success came to a screeching halt over the past month so have Hunt’s huge yardage totals. Now, Hunt’s numbers on the season still look great. He’s on pace for 1,400 yards rushing, another 600 yards receiving, and 11 total touchdowns. Those are great numbers for ANY running back, let alone a third round rookie out of Toledo. In order to hit those totals, Hunt and the Chiefs running game are going to need to recapture some of their early season magic. So the question is, how likely is Kareem Hunt to rebound after the bye?
Before we answer that question let’s define just how big of a drop off in production that we’ve seen from Hunt running the football during the Chiefs last four games. Durning the Chiefs 5-0 start Kareem Hunt was averaging 19.4 carries for 121.4 yards per game with four rushing touchdowns and a 6.3 yards/carry average. During the past four games where the Chiefs have gone 1-3, Hunt’s averages were just 14.5 carries for 47.8 yards per game with 0 rushing touchdowns and a 3.3 yards/carry average. The drop is staggering. Look at those numbers next to each other.
19.4 carries, 121.4 yards, 6.3 yards/carry, 4 TDs
14.5 carries, 47.8 yards, 3.3 yards/carry, 0 TDs
Yes, Hunt received about five less carries per game, but the production drop is what is really concerning. While the carries drop isn’t ideal it’s the 73.6 yards less rushing per game that is simply massive. Now, you can certainly argue that the pace Hunt was going simply wasn’t sustainable. If a back averaged 121.4 yards per game for a full 16 game season that would be over 1900 rushing yards. There aren’t many running backs in the history of the NFL that have put up that many yards in a season. However, the flip side is if Hunt averaged 47.8 yards per game for a full 16 game season it would only total about 760 yards. Last season, that total would have put Hunt just behind Baltimore’s Terrance West and a couple of hundred yards behind Spencer Ware (who had a down year production-wise due to injuries).
The bottom line here isn’t just that Reid hasn’t run Hunt as much, he simply hasn’t been anywhere near as effective. Was Hunt banged up? Did he hit a rookie wall after only five games? Was it the caliber of run defenses that he faced? There’s no way for me to definitively answer those first two questions but I did take a look at the run defenses that Hunt has faced to see if it could tell us anything.
Before we can predict if Kareem Hunt and the Chiefs rushing attack will rebound after the bye week, we first need to try to figure out if the drop had more to do with Hunt and the Chiefs or more to do with the defenses they were facing. So I thought I would look at the season averages of the teams that the Chiefs faced both during their five game win streak and during their current 1-3 slump. Here’s what I found:
5-0 start, opposing defenses have allowed: 105.9 rushing yards/game and 4.3 yards/carry
1-3 slump, opposing defenses have allowed: 103.2 rushing yards/game and 4.1 yards/carry
Author’s Note: All the stats in this post were figured BEFORE Sunday’s slate of games.
So technically you could say that the rushing defenses that K.C. faced during their current slump are slightly better overall, but not NEAR enough of a difference to justify Hunt going from 121.4 yards and 6.3 yards per carry to 47.8 yards and 3.3 yards per carry. In fact, I bet if you took out the huge totals Hunt put up against the defenses in their first five games and the measly totals he put up lately you would find that the opposing defenses during their slump weren’t any better at all at stopping the run against the rest of the NFL.
To me that says that the drop off has more to do with Hunt and the execution of K.C.’s running game than it has to do with the opposing defenses. About the only excuses you could make in their defense is that opposing defenses may have began to sell out to stop the run more after Hunt’s ridiculous start to the season. Even then, this clearly has a lot to do with the Chiefs ability to execute in the run game.
The other excuse would be the injuries to Mitch Morse and Laurent Duvernay-Tardif catching up to them. If both Morse and LDT are back to close to 100% healthy after the bye week, that should help the Chiefs out. Plus, if Hunt has been banged up or just worn down the rest should do him some good too. However, if Hunt was that worn down after the first nine games it may not speak well to him rebounding over the final stretch of a 16 game season.
So what about the run defenses that the Chiefs will face after the bye? Will the Chiefs have an easier time? I looked at that as well.
Since we have already established that the rush defenses that the Chiefs faced during their hot start and recent slump were relatively consistent, I’m simply going to combine their stats to give you the averages for the run defenses that the Chiefs faced in their first nine games. Those numbers are as follows.
104.7 yards per game allowed
4.2 yards per carry allowed
When I averaged together the rush defenses of the seven teams remaining on their schedule I got the following:
110.8 yards per game allowed
4.0 yards per carry allowed
So once again we aren’t looking at a big difference in the quality of rush defenses that the Chiefs will be facing. The defenses remaining on their schedule are allowing a few MORE yards per game but are actually giving up slightly LESS yards per carry. That means that if the Chiefs want to get back to bigger rushing totals it is up to them to make that happen. Now, the Chiefs do face a couple of bad rush defenses in the New York Giants (who they play next) and the Los Angeles Chargers (who Hunt gashed for 172 yards in their first meeting). Those two defenses both rank near the bottom of the league in rushing yards allowed. If the Chiefs and Kareem Hunt can’t put up decent numbers against those teams then the overall numbers probably aren’t going to be pretty.
On the other hand, the Chiefs have three top ten rush defenses remaining on their schedule in the Buffalo Bills, Miami Dolphins, and the Denver Broncos (again). The other two teams on their schedule the rest of the way, the Jets and Raiders would probably be best described as slightly below average. The real difference down the stretch may be that the Chiefs are facing more teams with losing records. If the Chiefs are the overall better team and can establish a lead early on it may allow them to run the ball late in the game and add to their rushing totals but I still stand by my assessment that the Chiefs must figure out their own solution to getting the running game back on track.
Kareem Hunt was one of the most electrifying players in the NFL over the first five games of the season. Over the past month he’s been Terrance West. Along with tightening up the much discussed defense, the Chiefs HAVE to make getting Hunt and the running game back on track one of the top priorities during their bye week. As the weather gets colder and it gets harder to put up huge passing numbers through the air it becomes all the more vital to have a good rushing attack. The Chiefs had the best in the NFL early in the season and they will need it again if they hope to do any damage late in the season as well.
Here’s to hoping they make that happen this week against a bad Giants rush defense.
As always, thanks for reading and GO CHIEFS!