Chiefs rumors: Marlon Mack is on Kansas City’s radar

According to NFL reporter Josina Anderson, the Kansas City Chiefs are among a handful of teams who have made inquiries for a potential trade to the Indianapolis Colts for running back Marlon Mack.

The Chiefs recently lost Clyde Edwards-Helaire with a sprained MCL to injury, and the team placed him on injured reserve, which means he’s out for at least a few weeks. That creates a potential opening in the backfield for a new addition like Mack, but the Chiefs aren’t the only team kicking the tires.

According to Anderson, the Chiefs could be competing with the Carolina Panthers, the New Orleans Saints, and the San Francisco 49ers for Mack’s services. In a sense, having multiple teams interested could generate a bit of a bidding war, but everyone also knows that Mack is buried on the Colts depth chart for various reasons and it’s hard to see anyone giving up anything substantial for Mack—including the Chiefs.

Mack was the Colts fourth round pick in the 2017 NFL Draft and quickly rose up the depth chart to provide solid production with back to back seasons at or near 1,000 rushing yards. He had 17 total touchdowns between the 2018-19 seasons and looked like he would be the Colts featured back for some time, until he tore his Achilles in the opening game of the 2020 season. Just like that, everything changed for Mack and the Colts, who went on to draft and use Jonathan Taylor as the bell cow instead.

Mack returned to the Colts on a one-year deal this past offseason, but so far he has only 25 carries for 96 yards in limited duty—good for a 3.9 yards/carry average, which is far below his 4.4 career average there.

Given the uncertainty of production on this side of his injury and the fact that the Chiefs looked just fine in the running game with Darrel Williams and Jerick McKinnon on Sunday against a strong WFT front seven, it’s hard to see the Chiefs giving up much, if anything at all, for more security at running back when other positions are lacking. Then again, Veach loves running backs and another injury would seriously hurt the Chiefs there. It will be interesting to see if any moves are made for Mack by the trade deadline on November 2.