What routes best fit the Chiefs' WR profile?

Looking at the Mahomes era to see how the wide receiver position maximizes the route tree

The Kansas City Chiefs need a wide receiver. Even before Rashee Rice’s incident over the weekend, and even after Hollywood Brown’s signing, the Chiefs still needed some consistency and talent infused in the wide receiver room. With Marquez Valdes-Scantling and Mecole Hardman currently free agents, and with questions surrounding Kadarius Toney and Skyy Moore’s roles on this team, the one-year deal on Brown doesn’t move the needle for the future. That’s led a lot of draft and Chiefs’ analysts — myself included — to assume that another receiver (or more) will be added to the mix for 2024.

While the general conversation has been around the need for the Chiefs to find a “true X receiver”, that style of player can come in many forms. Most immediately leap to a big receiver that can beat press, gain separation against man coverage, and come down with some difficult catches. However, for Andy Reid’s offense that hasn’t always been the case. He’s been able to find players that fit in that “X” mold that may have some non-traditional body types or skillsets that he is able to maximize.

Today — rather than looking for the next prototypical X receiver — I decided to look back at the Chiefs’ offense to see the types of routes against various coverages that his de-facto X receiver has run. Using the wonderful databases over at Trumedia Networks, we can look at these routes, how they play into the offense, and what the Chiefs could actually be looking for to continue to add to their 2024 wide receiver room.