Chiefs Barely Make List of Top-10 Offenses in Latest Prediction

The Chiefs know that Roger Goodell doesn’t need to see flashy offense to hand over the Lombardi Trophy. He simply needs to see one team score more points in a Super Bowl.

With apologies to Bear Bryant, Kansas City will gladly let other offenses sell tickets. The Chiefs have a defensive coordinator named Steve Spagnuolo, which means betting on Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes is an easy decision, at least until another team can beat them in the AFC Championship.

But take away that defensive unit, focusing exclusively on the ability to score offensive points, and the Chiefs are barely a top-10 team. That’s the conclusion of NFL.com’s Gennaro Filice, who said Wednesday that Kansas City’s offense is the10th best in the NFL.

“Despite making the Super Bowl in each of the past two seasons,” Filice wrote, “the Chiefs ranked 12th in offensive points per game in 2024 and 14th in 2023. That’s a notable departure from the first five years of the Reid-Mahomes pairing, when Kansas City ranked first twice and never finished lower than seventh.”

It doesn’t take an MIT degree to understand Spagnuolo’s impact, especially when using Mahomes and the phrase 14th-ranked offense in the same sentence. But if having Rashee Rice, Hollywood Brown and Isiah Pacheco healthy over a full season improves the Chiefs’ ability to score offensive points, they’ll gladly take it.

“Everyone knows the main culprit for this downswing: an offensive line that sprung holes, especially on the edge,” Filice said. “Consequently, Brett Veach aggressively targeted tackles in free agency (giving Trent Williams understudy Jaylon Moore a two-year, $30 million deal) and the 2025 NFL Draft (spending the first-round pick on Josh Simmons).”

Veach aggressively targeted tackles by getting two candidates to compete for the all-important role on the left side of the offensive line, but he didn’t do it without a strategic plan. Knowing Simmons could be available late in the first round after knee surgery ended his final season at Ohio State, Veach targeted Moore at $15 million per year. The Chiefs theoretically could’ve had a more-proven free-agent option, Dan Moore, who wound up signing with Tennessee for $20 million per season.

But they gambled on Jaylon Moore’s upside, smaller sample size, and 49ers pedigree in the shadow of the future Hall of Famer, Williams.

“Is that enough to fully patch up the problem areas?” Filice asked. “Maybe yes, maybe no -- but I trust Reid and Mahomes to put more points on the board this fall, one way or another, especially given cleaner bills of health from running back Isiah Pacheco and wide receivers Rashee Rice and Hollywood Brown.”

The Chiefs aren’t just 10th in those expected 2025 offensive rankings. They’re not even first in their own division.

The full list of Filicie’s predicted top-10 offenses, in terms of offensive-points production: 1) Buffalo, 2) Tampa Bay, 3) Baltimore, 4) Washington, 5) Detroit, 6) Denver, 7) Philadelphia, 8) Green Bay, 9) Cincinnati, 10) Kansas City.

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