After the Kansas City Chiefs’ Week 6 win over the Buffalo Bills, Sean McDermott addressed the Buffalo media. He said that when facing the Kansas City offense “you have to pick your poison” in regards to what you’re trying to take away on defense. Well, they picked their poison, selling out to defend Patrick Mahomes and the explosive passing game. In return, the Chiefs made the Bills pay handsomely for it, to the tune of 245 total rushing yards on the day.
After several weeks of disappointment on the ground, the Chiefs gave their running game a bit more opportunity in this game. Andy Reid explained it wasn’t anything that they specifically identified on film with the Bills, rather that he felt he hadn’t been giving the running game a chance to get going, especially in the second half of Week 5 against the Las Vegas Raiders.
“This is me talking, so I didn’t think I gave the guys enough of a chance last week with it, especially in the second half,” Reid told reporters following the game. “So, we wanted to make sure—you know, we’re best when we have some kind of a balance going. When you can go back and forth, it puts a tremendous amount of pressure on the defense. So, we were able to do both, and we felt like we needed both in this game.”
While rookie RB Clyde Edwards-Helaire deserves a ton of the credit — an offensive line comprised of mainly backup players were the stars of the show. This group controlled the line of scrimmage in a dominant fashion, creating what felt like the most push we’ve seen from an interior offensive line since the days when Brian Waters, Casey Wiegmann and Will Shields were destroying defensive fronts.
Maybe that last part is a little hyperbolic, but their play was certainly reminiscent of such moments. Daniel Kilgore and Nick Allegretti gave the offensive interior new life in the ground game, tossing out pancakes like a line cook at the local IHOP. The Bills did sit a few starters on the defensive line, but they still had some stout players like Ed Oliver and Quinton Jefferson out there. It felt like Buffalo could have put a few Hall of Famers out there and it wouldn’t have mattered because the guys were just playing like bullies.
Panthers GM Dave Gettleman would be soaking wet after watching the tape of these hog mollies play. Over at PFF, it was the most positively graded performance by the entire offensive line in quite some time. For Reid, he was just proud of the performance and the coaching job on the offensive line.
“Kilgore did a nice job, he’s a good football player,” Reid said. “He’s played a lot of football. Allegretti, I thought he did a nice job, too. So, a good, solid game. I’ll look to see the tape and see how we did from there. But I thought it looked like the offensive line—(Mike) Remmers kicked out, he started at guard and kicked out to tackle—so, we had a lot of moving pieces there. A tribute to Coach (Andy) Heck and the job that he does moving people around in practice. The guys didn’t really flinch, they just jumped in and went.”
It was clear that the Chiefs’ offensive line had something to prove in this game. Even with some backup players in there, this is a proud group and their performance was called into question after the Week 5 loss. Patrick Mahomes felt the entire group took the criticism to heart.
“I think the O-Line and those guys really took it personally upon themselves that the light boxes that we’d been facing and the pressure was given up last week and they took that personally this week and you saw it today,” Mahomes said. “They gave good holes for Clyde (Edwards-Helaire) to run through. We had to shuffle those guys around and guys stepped up and Clyde really hit it and finished runs well.”
Now the question is, what will the Chiefs do with the offensive line from here? The guys stepped up as Mahomes said, but will they be rewarded with another opportunity?
After this performance, you have to consider keeping this interior lineup if you're the #Chiefs. They haven't had an interior move a defense like this in the ground game for a while. I think you give this group another shot next week in Denver at the very least. https://t.co/oNRmvvlU5o pic.twitter.com/ZEOkSUH8Zy
— Charles Goldman (@goldmctNFL) October 20, 2020
Do you keep Allegretti and Kilgore in at left guard and center? They both exceeded all expectations in Week 6. Do you go back to a lineup that might not yield such favorable results in the ground game? The coaching staff will likely work it out in practice over the course of the week. The injury to Schwartz may ultimately be the determining factor here. If he’s forced to sit out, we should see this same group back out there in Week 7 against the Denver Broncos.
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