Following the Tyreek Hill trade, the Kansas City Chiefs made a number of moves to reinvent the offense. One of which was signing Ronald Jones. As it sits today, with Darrel Williams and Jerick McKinnon both still floating around free agency, the running back room in KC is comprised of Clyde Edwards-Helaire, Ronald Jones, and Derrick Gore.
CEH is poised for a breakout year, coming into his third season in full health with two seasons of league exposure, Jones has a chance to take over the RB1 role as a two-time 1,000-yard rusher entering his age 25 season, and Gore showed flashes of greatness in the opportunities he was allowed in 2021.
While there are likely to only be three active running backs on the roster come the regular season, bringing in a fourth in free agency would allow depth in the case of emergency, introduce competition in camp, and allow for the draft to be focused more intently on the pressing needs of the defense.
There are a couple of prospects in this year’s draft that have the potential to become day three winners, as many successful running backs typically are, but for the intents and purpose of this read, let’s look at the top four remaining available free agent running backs that the Chiefs could nab pre-draft.
Melvin Gordon
A former 15th overall selection in 2015, Melvin Gordon would be making his third stop in a tour of the AFC West if the Chiefs were to bring him aboard. Throughout the life of his first contract with the Chargers, Gordon made two Pro Bowl appearances, gathered 47 total touchdowns, and rushed for 1,100 yards in the year of his greatest usage.
He was signed in free agency by the Broncos in 2020 and had two highly productive years. He had over 200 touches in each of his seasons in Denver, rushed for a total of 1,904 yards, and had 20 total touchdowns.
Gordon was the premier back of the Chargers for half a decade and maintained that status with the Broncos even after they drafted their running back of the future, Javonte Williams, in 2021.
Age may be creeping into the Melvin Gordon conversation for 2022, as he will be playing his age 29 season. However, his experience and consistency would not only be a crutch in Kansas City but could provide an excellent mentor presence for two players in CEH and RoJo, who have combined for a shorter career than that of Gordon.
His addition, in that capacity, may be tough to justify, however, as he will likely command a more intensive salary than Ronald Jones, who seems to be on a “prove it” deal in KC.
Marlon Mack
Marlon Mack has been loosely tied to the Chiefs dating back to the 2021 trade deadline, and it remains a viable possibility that he dons the red and gold at some point.
Mack was a fourth-round selection by the Indianapolis Colts in 2017 and became an impact player in years two and three of his career. Between the 2018 and 2019 seasons, he rushed for 1,999 yards and 17 touchdowns. He became a household name over that stretch, but then his durability came into question.
He’s had semi-regular hamstring issues, he broke his hand and missed two games in 2019, and ruptured his Achilles in 2020. Since the most significant of his injuries — the Achilles — he has barely returned to the field, only playing in seven games and receiving 32 touches out of the backfield.
With the frustration of Clyde Edwards-Helaire’s injury proneness, Mack may not seem abundantly appealing. However, the expectation is that 2022 will be a return to full speed, and if the 2019 version of Marlon Mack were available to the Chiefs, he would be welcomed with open arms.
It has been four years since the last 1,000-yard rushing performance in Kansas City (Kareem Hunt, 2017), and reintroducing such an effort to this offense would be monumental.
Darrel Williams
Darrel Williams was the Chiefs leading rusher last year with 558 yards and six touchdowns. Simply outlining his rushing numbers, however, does him a disservice. He emerged as a legitimate pass-catching threat, and hauled in 47 receptions, for 452 yards and two touchdowns. That put him over 1,000 all-purpose yards, and his 8 total touchdowns were third-most on the team behind Tyreek Hill (10) and Travis Kelce (9).
All of that considered, it feels as though the Chiefs would be extremely fortunate to have him back at a low cost once more. He was on a one-year $1.6M deal in 2021, and it seems likely that he will find himself a multi-year deal somewhere as a backup or in a platoon role.
With the Ronald Jones signing, it is likely that the Chiefs brass is ready to move in a different direction, and that may well be attributed to what Williams is deserving of in this free agency.
If he continues to linger around without signing a contract beyond the draft, his leverage would lighten, and the odds of Williams returning to KC on another team-friendly deal would improve. For the Chiefs, that would be great, but frankly, it would be nice to see him earn the payday that he deserves — so long as it’s somewhere outside of the division.
Phillip Lindsay
Another familiar face to the AFC West, Lindsay was signed as an undrafted free agent by Denver in 2018 and burst onto the scene like a bat out of hell. In his first two seasons as a pro, he rushed for 2,048 yards and 16 touchdowns. His third year as a Bronco was the same year that the team offered Melvin Gordon his second — career — contract, and he fell out of the spotlight.
Around that same time, Pat Shurmur became Denver’s offensive coordinator, and he brought a new spread offense to town that exposed some of Lindsay’s weaknesses. He is not an excellent pass blocker and has never excelled as a pass-catcher, which are two things that may incline an eyebrow to raise in Kansas City.
However, with a new-look offense for the Chiefs in 2022, Lindsay could potentially resurface some of his old flash running behind this stellar interior offensive line.
He was almost obsolete in 2021, splitting his season with the Texans and Dolphins, getting lost in platoons in which others were producing at a higher clip. He would be a very cheap depth option for the Chiefs to nab on the back end of this free agency period, which is exactly what we’re looking for here.