Chiefs Welcome Weight on Pacheco’s Shoulders

Kansas City’s left-tackle issues took so much of the spotlight last year that most fully didn’t grasp the significance of their offensive injuries. Patrick Mahomes somehow led the Chiefs to a 15-2 record and another Super Bowl berth despite playing most of the season without his starting running back and both starting wide receivers.

That starting running back is, well, back. And Andy Reid is especially excited that the new-look Isiah Pacheco gives the Chiefs a lot more offensive muscle, literally.

“He's put on a couple pounds of good weight,” Reid said last week. “He got himself down there a little bit last year and leaned up. But man, I think he looks tremendous right now.”

Right now, Pacheco is entering his fourth NFL season, a contract year. But he’s feeling like he’s back playing his second. That’s because Pacheco not only added muscle, but he also feels faster.

“Just going back to 216, 4.37 Isiah Pacheco-style,” he told reporters this week, after a fractured fibula in Week 2 sidelined him nine games in 2024.

He’s worked his way back but the rehab also worked off his weight.

“You're out there working your tail off,” said Pacheco, “and just sweating every day and not eating enough to get the weight back. There's not going to be as much time to gain weight during the season, rather than the offseason and the whole program that they have here for us.”

The more important accomplishment Pacheco made this spring was earning his bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from Rutgers.

“It means so much to me and my family to be the first-generation graduate,” said Pacheco, who returned to the New Jersey campus to walk across the stage at his graduation ceremonies last month. “So, a big part of my career there that I wanted to finish, and I had to go back, and I did it. I’m so blessed.”

The Chiefs have been blessed since they drafted Pacheco in the seventh round three years ago. Including postseason, Kansas City is 39-9 (.813) with him on the field. That’s why Reid, Patrick Mahomes and everyone else is encouraged by his weight gain. NFL running backs need weight to absorb violent collisions.

Pacheco, along with Trent McDuffie, George Karlaftis, Bryan Cook, Jaylen Watson and the rest of the 2022 Chiefs draft class, are aiming for NFL history this season. They could become the first group of players to earn trips to Super Bowls in each of their first four seasons since the Bills’ 1990 draft class.

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