It is no secret that the Kansas City Chiefs' running back room over the past two years has been an underwhelming group. Despite a Super Bowl appearance in 2024, the Chiefs had one of the least efficient rushing attacks in the NFL, ranking second-to-last in the league in team yards per carry. While the Chiefs actually increased their league-wide yards per rush ranking to 20th this season, much of that could be attributed to Patrick Mahomes’ scrambling ability.
In 2025, Mahomes was the Chiefs’ second-most efficient ball carrier, only behind Xavier Worthy, who had just 11 carries on the season. On 64 rushing attempts, Mahomes averaged 6.6 yards per carry and ran for five scores. The Chiefs’ primary running back tandem of Kareem Hunt and Isiah Pacheco recorded 3.7 and 3.9 yards per carry, respectively. Both players are impending free agents, and it would be in the Chiefs’ best interest to completely overhaul the running back room.
While Hunt is an effective short-yardage back, he offers very little beyond that at this point in his career. As for Pacheco, while his first two seasons were promising, he has been largely ineffective over the past two years. Mahomes’ athleticism and ability to gain yards with his legs have been a major plus for the Chiefs’ offense throughout his career, but it is nowhere near a sustainable formula.
Mahomes will turn 31 in September, and he’s coming off a torn ACL, so the Chiefs relying on him to bail them out with effective scrambles will no longer fly. In order to regain elite status on offense—something that has eluded the Chiefs over the past three years—they need to make significant investments at the running back position.
Here are three players the Chiefs could add through free agency or the upcoming draft who could help fix their stagnant running game.
1. Kenneth Walker, Seattle Seahawks (FA)
Walker is an impending free agent who is fresh off a 1,000-yard season for the potentially Super Bowl-bound Seahawks (this piece was written prior to the conference championship games). Walker has been an excellent runner of the football throughout his career and is just 25 years old, meaning he could be an effective player for the foreseeable future.
In his four seasons in Seattle, Walker has averaged north of 4 yards per rush in three of them, with the lone exception being an injury-riddled 2024 campaign. Walker has enjoyed his best season since his rookie year and ran for 1,027 yards on 221 carries this past regular season. His numbers are made even more impressive given that he split carries with Zach Charbonnet throughout the year.
Walker would provide Kansas City with backfield explosiveness that it has sorely lacked over the past several seasons.
2. Breece Hall, New York Jets (FA)
Similar to Walker, Hall is set to enter free agency this upcoming offseason. He is coming off his first career 1,000-yard season, totaling 1,065 yards and four touchdowns on the ground in 2025. Hall has always been an efficient runner, as his career-low yards per rush mark was 4.2 in 2024. That number is still 0.3 yards higher than the Chiefs’ most efficient running back this season.
A primary difference between Hall and Walker is their receiving ability. Walker has never reached 300 receiving yards in a season, while Hall has averaged 475 yards through the air over the past three years. Hall has also played on some dysfunctional and poorly organized Jets offenses over the years, which makes his effectiveness as both a runner and receiver more impressive.
Throughout Hall’s tenure in New York, he has played with quarterbacks such as Zach Wilson, Justin Fields, Brady Cook, and Tim Boyle. Sharing a backfield with Mahomes could help him reach his full potential and add much-needed playmaking to Kansas City’s offense.
3. Jeremiyah Love, Notre Dame (Draft)
Love is, by a wide margin, the best running back prospect in this upcoming draft. In most years, the Chiefs would be well out of range to select a player of Love’s caliber, but that will not be the case this time around. The Chiefs currently hold the ninth overall pick in the draft, which puts them in solid position to draft the decorated Notre Dame running back.
While using a top-10 pick on a running back has been frowned upon in the past, the Chiefs would be fulfilling their most desperate need by doing this. While playing for the Fighting Irish, Love amassed 2,882 yards and 36 touchdowns while averaging a whopping 6.7 yards per carry. This past season, he won the Doak Walker Award as the nation’s top running back and was named a unanimous All-American, as well as a Heisman finalist. If the Chiefs bypass Walker and Hall in free agency to select Love in the draft, this could net them their running back of the future.
In total, the Chiefs’ inability to run the football at a reasonable level has played a major role in their offensive regression over the past three seasons. In 2023 and 2024, that was masked by winning at the highest level, as they reached the Super Bowl in both seasons and won it all in the former. However, a disastrous 6–11 campaign should motivate the Chiefs to fix a major hindrance to their offensive production.