The Kansas City Chiefs may be riding high fresh off a 28-18 win over the San Francisco 49ers, but once again, the offense was bitten by the injury bug. Early this week, head coach Andy Reid revealed that receiver Juju Smith-Schuster will miss the Week 8 clash against the Las Vegas Raiders with a hamstring injury, leaving Patrick Mahomes short on weapons. … at that moment. The injury list was getting rather long for Kansas City. Already without Marquise Brown and Rashee Rice for the season, and now with Smith-Schuster out for a week at least, the Chiefs are worryingly thin at the position.
But will they look outside the building for reinforcements? Again, flash back to the start of the week when Reid said he didn’t think so. “Really, all those guys on the practice squad, we’ve got a lot of trust in and feel good about,” Reid said. “We’ve talked about it a little bit, I’m gonna get with Veach [General Manager Brett Veach] here after we’re done, and we’ll go through everything.”
With players like Nikko Remigio and Justyn Ross on the practice squad, one or both could be elevated for the clash against the Raiders. Or … change direction. Be flexible. Make a trade for DeAndre Hopkins, as they did early Wednesday morning.
Travis Kelce, Skyy Moore, Mecole Hardman, and Xavier Worthy loom as some of the key weapons for Mahomes to put a big enough score to keep the Chiefs’ undefeated season rolling against Las Vegas, and sprinkling in Remigio or Ross could’ve help add a little extra something with so many pieces missing. But now? It’ll be a “sprinkle” or more of the accomplished D-Hop.
The Chiefs have handled the loss of receivers well, but every team has a breaking point. How did the front office handle this breaking point? By breaking from a plan … and creating a better one.