Samaje Perine signing shores up Chiefs' greatest remaining roster weakness

By all accounts, the Kansas City Chiefs have one of the most talented rosters from top to bottom, a team with no major weak links and plenty of star power. It's a primary reason why the franchise has won two Super Bowls in a row and are the favorites to chase for a three-peat.

But it's not as if the Chiefs didn't have some potential troubled spots, especially a few positions where the talent was thinner than others. Given that the Chiefs are hoping to play more games than most other teams, that means the roster has to hold up longer—that Brett Veach, as the team's general manager, must build a sturdier boat than anyone else.

The Chiefs have signed running back Samaje Perine, formerly of the Denver Broncos, to the 2024 roster.

Over the last 48 hours, Veach has gone to great lengths to raise the floor at a few positions of need. He imported JuJu Smith-Schuster to make sure the wide receiver room had more trust and chemistry than before. He traded for Cam Thomas to make sure the burden wasn't too great on first-team defensive ends to start the season. And he found a way to lessen the overall burden on Travis Kelce by upgrading blocking at the position with Peyton Hendershot.

Through it all, however, the only glaring need left—and it was a graver concern than any of the previously addressed positions—was found at running back. And on Wednesday, Brett Veach found a wya to shore things up with the signing of Samaje Perine.

The Chiefs added Perine, formerly of the Denver Broncos, after roster cuts were made on Tuesday, which means K.C. moved fairly quickly to add Perine to the mix. It was a necessary move given the problems at running back once Isiah Pacheco was out of the way.

For the Chiefs, Pacheco is the only proven, dependable back they have coming into a new year. Jerick McKinnon became a free agent last spring and his injury history and age have likely kept him from finding meaningful work. Clyde Edwards-Helaire is back for another year, but he has his own health problems that make it hard to know if he's going to be all that reliable himself.

There's a lot of excitement in Chiefs Kingdom about halfback/fullback Carson Steele after watching the UCLA product rise up from being a rookie free agent to making the active roster. Everyone loves to watch his battering ram style of running, but Steele is also just a rookie with a limited body of experience.hshddf

The Chiefs did decide to dan f, but what was missing here was a pass-catching option and that's what they have now in Perine, who has had consecutive seasons of 50-plus targets in Denver and Cincinnati. In this way, the Chiefs now have a nice corps of backs with specialties all their own.

The Chiefs were already one of the most loaded teams in the NFL but now they are truly stacked—with more proven depth than before in anticipation of a deep postseason run.