The Kansas Metropolis Chiefs’ beginning operating again Isiah Pacheco missed 9 video games of the 2024 season with a fractured fibula, permitting the group to carry Kareem Hunt again for the primary time since his 2018 launch.
Pacheco ended up gaining simply 310 yards (and a landing) on 83 makes an attempt over six regular-season video games — a career-low 3.7 yards per try.
Hunt has been re-signed for 2025. The group has additionally introduced in former San Francisco 49ers operating again Elijah Johnson — and is extensively thought of to be prioritizing buying one other one from the NFL Draft’s deep class of operating backs.
However head coach Andy Reid remains to be standing behind Pacheco.
“I believe he’ll be even higher this yr,” Reid informed reporters on Monday morning on the league’s conferences in Palm Seashore, Florida, per The Kansas Metropolis Star. “He was forcing that factor coming again.”
Reid wasn’t suggesting that Pacheco wasn’t able to return. As an alternative, he was saying that after re-watching final season’s video games, he can now see that Pacheco wasn’t taking part in as much as his regular commonplace.
“He was bodily OK to go,” insisted Reid. “However once you’re taking a look at [the film], it’s minute stuff — simply perhaps that potential to chop as fast as he did earlier than. Now it’s nonetheless fast, however you’re speaking inches right here. Was it what he might do earlier than? Effectively, it wasn’t.”
Reid isn’t shocked his third-year operating again labored so laborious to get again to the sector.
“Most guys most likely wouldn’t have come again [from his injury],” he famous, “but when you already know him for a few minute, you’ll know that he wasn’t going to be held again.”
Nonetheless, Reid believes the movie revealed Pacheco was enhancing after his return — and with a full offseason of preparation, ought to be good to go for the approaching season.
“He was getting higher each week,” noticed Reid, “and I believe you’ll simply see him again to what he was earlier than.”
