We’ve talked before about this idea that the loss of Jamaal Charles in some ways helped the future of the Kansas City Chiefs offense. That the Chiefs offense had to learn to rely on players other than their best one.
I didn’t know if that was a good theory or not until I heard Alex Smith legitimizing it in an interview with Peter King’s MMQB. So I guess it is.
“It is really a compliment to Jamaal when I say: I feel like we got more complex when he was out,” Alex Smith says on The MMQB. “Because Jamaal is such a freak player, he gets you out of stuff. When you run into bad looks, it doesn’t matter, because Jamaal will sometimes break those into his longest runs. I felt like we grew not being able to always lean on him.”
Alex said it better than I thought it. Last year Andy Reid had to scheme his way out of losing his best player. Alex Smith did go downfield more often last year. The Chiefs learned they had two pretty good backs behind Jamaal. Jeremy Maclin became a legit threat.
Of course you don’t want to lose Jamaal. No one does. The Chiefs, however, took advantage of his time away. The optimist in me hopes that it will pay off this year, that the explosiveness of the Chiefs offense will continue to head in the right direction even with Jamaal back. Through a couple of preseason games there could be some truth to that.
Check out The MMQB’s Chiefs camp report here. Good read.