Welcome back to Arrowhead Pride Mailbag! Every week, watch for your opportunity to submit your Kansas City Chiefs questions in The flowwhich can be found on the AP home page.
After putting the NFL on notice with a dominant win over the The Detroit Lions – and with the always-hated Las Vegas Raiders arriving at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium in Week 7 – let’s see what our readers think.
Do you think the Chiefs will immediately let go of wide receiver Rashee Rice? Or will they put him into action to protect his knee?
A few weeks makes a big difference. The Chiefs couldn’t have imagined a better scenario for Rice’s return following his six-game suspension — and a serious knee injury suffered 13 months ago — although Fantasy owners awaiting a return on their investment might disagree.
For roughly the first ten quarters of the Chiefs’ season, Rice was almost treated like a mythical figure – the long-awaited savior of a stagnant offense. Since the second half of the Week 3 win over the New York Giants, Patrick Mahomes and the offense have more than come to life.
Kansas City certainly needs Rice to unlock the unit’s full potential, but the team no longer needs him to turn the unit around. This was not the case a month ago. Additionally, the two players who have largely absorbed Rice’s targets — JuJu Smith-Schuster and Travis Kelce — look healthy and are playing their best football in recent memory.
In front of a home crowd against a division foe, expect the Chiefs to have some things ready for Rice in his season debut. Look for him in the red zone and on third downs from mid-range. But it could take a few weeks – perhaps per game against the suddenly vulnerable Buffalo Bills in Week 9 – before Rice returns to the volume we saw last season.
But after the Week 10 bye, I expect Rice to be the unquestioned focal point of the offense.
I hear a lot of fans saying we should trade for one position or another. But are the Chiefs really buyers at the trade deadline — and if so, what position do they really need to improve?
I have lukewarm expectations for Kansas City at this year’s trade deadline. For starters, the Chiefs will likely begin next offseason more than $30 million over the salary cap — and currently only have 35 players signed for 2026. That doesn’t lend itself to forgoing draft capital. The team would be wise to extend its current cap hit — about $4.1 million — into next year.
Looking around the league, there aren’t many obvious sellers either. With league-wide parity and a seventh playoff seed in each conference, most teams will still consider themselves contenders by the Nov. 4 deadline.
A running back addition would make sense. The Chiefs should be interested in any dynamic starter available – although many teams share the same need. Given that rookie Brashard Smith is the only one back under contract for 2026, Kansas City could also explore low-cost options: players buried on the depth charts who are still on rookie contracts.
In a perfect world, the Chiefs would add an impact passer – but at midseason, those are hard to come by. The most realistic upgrade might be a rotational defensive tackle who can handle first downs and keep Chris Jones fresher for key passing situations.
Is rookie defensive tackle Omarr Norman-Lott still “stepped up” after being hit in the preseason, or is there a reason defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo continues to avoid using him?
Unfortunately, while Norman-Lott appeared to be fully recovered from his preseason ankle injury, he reportedly injured his shoulder during practice in Week 5, missing the Jacksonville Jaguars game. After playing about 30% of the defensive snaps in Weeks 2-4, he only logged 20% on Sunday against the Lions.
The Chiefs definitely need Norman-Lott’s help to relieve Jones inside. We’ve seen flashes — like his WWE sack of Jalen Hurts in Week 2 against the Eagles — but Kansas City needs to be careful. He hasn’t handled a heavy workload in college — and he’s already dealt with upper and lower body injuries this season. Another setback could result in a long absence.
Assuming I’m healthy, I’ll be watching closely after the Week 10 bye. The snap count Norman-Lott sees in Week 11 could tell us what to expect for the remainder of his rookie season.
On the SNF show, several people said the consensus around the organization was that they felt better about the overall state of the team than they did this time last year. Is that enough to calm the nerves of Chiefs fans after the team weathered a somewhat brutal schedule with a 3-3 record?
When Rice’s suspension was announced, many thought a 3-3 start would be acceptable – although they were most likely looking at different wins and losses. Losing close games stings, but context matters.
The on-field product should calm some nerves. The current version of the Chiefs offense might actually be more electric than the 2022 Super Bowl LVII-winning unit. Mahomes’ passer rating Sunday was 132.2 — his highest rating in nearly three years. With the return of his main weapon, he could soon be surrounded by the most complete supporting cast of his career.
That said, perhaps we should slow down in the face of the national media’s sudden love fest. Defensive concerns remain. The Chiefs defense has allowed +0.07 EPA per carry – currently the third-worst number in the NFL.
Kansas City has indeed resisted a brutal start to the calendar, but the road is not really improving. Six of the team’s remaining 11 games will be against 2024 playoff teams, and five against opponents with four or more current wins.
Before that challenge begins, Kansas City needs to build on its Week 6 success this Sunday against the Raiders. Despite their 2-4 record, Maxx Crosby and defensive coordinator Patrick Graham are capable of frustrating Mahomes. Rookie running back Ashton Jeanty will have studied how Detroit’s backs gashed the Chiefs in the first half last week.
We should feel encouraged, but maintaining success is harder than rediscovering it. The Chiefs’ mediocre start leaves them with very little margin for error going forward.
Thanks for reading this week’s Arrowhead Pride Mailbag! Keep watching The flow for the opportunity to ask your questions.
