{"id":341158,"date":"2025-09-04T14:09:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T14:09:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/341158\/"},"modified":"2025-09-04T14:09:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T14:09:09","slug":"the-chiefs-3-biggest-questions-against-the-chargers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/341158\/","title":{"rendered":"The Chiefs\u2019 3 biggest questions against the Chargers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Throughout the season, I\u2019ll be looking at three questions I have for each of the Kansas City Chiefs<\/a>\u2018 upcoming opponents. For Week 1, Kansas City faces a familiar foe: its AFC West rival, the Los Angeles Chargers<\/a>. Here\u2019s what I\u2019ll be looking for when the game starts.<\/p>\n

1. Can the Chiefs\u2019 pass rush overwhelm the Chargers\u2019 offensive line?<\/p>\n

Season-ending injuries are terrible \u2014 particularly when they happen before it gets underway. During the offseason, the Chargers\u2019 Pro Bowl left tackle Rashawn Slater tore his patellar tendon. He will not play in 2025.<\/p>\n

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But even before the injury, there were some question marks about the Los Angeles offensive line. While Slater and Joe Alt looked elite at tackle, the interior of the offensive line wasn\u2019t even close to that level. And despite being bad in 2024, the Chargers didn\u2019t do much about it for 2025.<\/p>\n

Los Angeles did sign Mehki Becton from the Philadelphia Eagles<\/a> \u2014 but while he had a great 2024 season, he has health concerns. He missed three weeks of training camp<\/a> with an undisclosed injury. But aside from him, the Chargers have the same interior players who struggled last year.<\/p>\n

And with Slater out, they must now deal with a concern at right tackle, because Alt has moved to the left side. Going into the season, this might be a bottom-5 offensive line. This allows Kansas City to get its pass rush going early. If I\u2019m to believe the defensive line can improve from a subpar 2024, I\u2019ll need to see the Chiefs impact the pocket throughout the game.<\/p>\n

2. Can the Chiefs\u2019 offense be explosive against Jesse Minter\u2019s defense?<\/p>\n

One of last season\u2019s surprises was how well the Los Angeles defense played. In the Brandon Staley era, the unit was a disaster. The team didn\u2019t make any meaningful personnel moves before defensive coordinator Jesse Minter took over, so it was unclear whether the former Michigan coach could make a big improvement.<\/p>\n

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But in his first season, the Chargers\u2019 defense dramatically exceeded expectations. Even with some shaky performances against top offenses, Los Angeles finished seventh in total success rate \u2014 fourth in passing and 15th against the run. Considering his personnel limitations, Minter did a tremendous job \u2014 and his defense played a big role in getting the Chargers into the playoffs.<\/p>\n

Minter\u2019s defense got the job done by keeping a lid on explosive downfield plays, relying on deep zone coverage to protect it over the top. This allowed defenders to rally to the ball. Since it didn\u2019t have the bodies for it, the unit didn\u2019t blitz or use man coverage. Instead, it forced opposing offenses into long drives \u2014 and made enough stops to make it a top-10 defense.<\/p>\n

So for the Chiefs, the challenge will be to find explosive plays against Minter\u2019s defense. Throughout the offseason, we\u2019ve heard about Kansas City taking more deep shots \u2014 but against the Chargers\u2019 defense, those might not be available. How can the Chiefs create some explosive plays?<\/p>\n

Los Angeles plays with very light boxes, so there should be opportunities for the Chiefs to be explosive on the ground. If Isiah Pacheco is going to have a great year, we should be able to see him get into space on Friday night. This will also be a great test for Kansas City\u2019s wide receivers. Will they be able to break tackles \u2014 something they couldn\u2019t do often enough in 2024? The wideouts are clearly more dynamic. Will that translate to success?<\/p>\n

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3. What can we expect from the Chiefs\u2019 run defense?<\/p>\n

During the preseason, we saw Kansas City\u2019s run defense struggle \u2014 especially against the Seahawks, who gained 268 yards on the ground. I try not to take much away from any preseason game \u2014 but in Seattle, the run defense looked pretty shaky.<\/p>\n

Besides\u2026 we know the Chargers are going to run the ball. Even with their bad offensive line (and poor running backs) in 2024, they were committed to establishing that identity \u2014 because that\u2019s what any team with Jim Harbaugh and Greg Roman will do. While the offensive line is still an issue for this season, Los Angeles did invest a first-round pick into running back Omarion Hampton \u2014 and signed Najee Harris in free agency, too.<\/p>\n

In this game, Hampton will probably be the main rusher. His combination of power and explosiveness reminds me of Joe Mixon \u2014 and I think the Chargers will feed him touches to limit what their offensive line has to do in pass protection.<\/p>\n

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For the Chiefs, I\u2019m primarily interested in seeing how the safeties will do against the run. In 2024, Justin Reid played a key role in the run defense. He could target and tackle running backs one-on-one, which allowed the team to have a great run defense \u2014 even while using a quarters-based coverage scheme. Will the guys replacing Reid be able to do that? Hampton is a home-run threat on any play, so Kansas City\u2019s safeties will be the last line of defense. I\u2019ll be interested to see how they perform.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Throughout the season, I\u2019ll be looking at three questions I have for each of the Kansas City Chiefs\u2018…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":341159,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2064],"tags":[241,346,7,3188,5661,3608,13095,118,1014,262,2444,2443,4125,6,1482,288,109,1526,238,237],"class_list":{"0":"post-341158","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-chargers","8":"tag-chargers","9":"tag-chiefs","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-isiah-pacheco","12":"tag-joe-alt","13":"tag-joe-mixon","14":"tag-justin-reid","15":"tag-kansas-city","16":"tag-los-angeles","17":"tag-los-angeles-chargers","18":"tag-losangeles","19":"tag-losangeleschargers","20":"tag-najee-harris","21":"tag-nfl","22":"tag-offensive-line","23":"tag-omarion-hampton","24":"tag-philadelphia-eagles","25":"tag-rashawn-slater","26":"tag-seahawks","27":"tag-seattle"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115146428983883079","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/341159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}