Chiefs to retain key veteran running back

This continues a remarkable turnaround for the former Adrian Peterson Vikings backup. Once on the verge of seeing a severe knee injury end his career, McKinnon has become a valuable contributor for the Chiefs. The former college quarterback did not miss a game last year and enjoyed the best receiving season of his career, catching 56 passes for 512 yards and nine touchdowns. Not only catching two more touchdown passes in a season than any other back in Chiefs history, McKinnon also set a post-merger NFL running back record by catching a TD pass in six straight games.

The 49ers gave McKinnon a four-year, $30M deal in 2018; Kyle Shanahan saw the ex-Vikings third-round pick as a key passing-game piece. An ACL tear just before the 2018 season led to McKinnon missing all of the 2018 and 2019 campaigns. The 49ers reached a reworked deal with the resilient back in 2020, and during a San Francisco injury avalanche, McKinnon played all 16 games that season. That set the table for McKinnon’s Chiefs run.

Kansas City reached one-year deals with McKinnon in 2021 and 2022. Both have been veteran-minimum accords. McKinnon played last season for $1.27M. It will be interesting to see if the Chiefs reward McKinnon for his contributions, or if the grim market for veteran backs leads to another bottom-level agreement. While McKinnon played a vital role in Kansas City’s latest Super Bowl-winning season, a number of productive running backs settled for one-year deals south of $3MM. D’Onta Foreman, Damien Harris and Devin Singletary joined ex-McKinnon 49ers teammates Raheem Mostert and Jeff Wilson in signing one-year contracts at $3M or less.

McKinnon has helped the Chiefs recover from their Clyde Edwards-Helaire draft mistake. The Chiefs, who had used Damien Williams as their primary post-Kareem Hunt solution during their 2019 Super Bowl-winning season, turned to Edwards-Helaire after the veteran’s COVID-19 opt-out. The Chiefs released Williams in 2021 and ended up deploying McKinnon as their primary playoff back. McKinnon teamed with 2022 seventh-round pick Isiah Pacheco as the Chiefs’ stretch-run options; CEH was a Super Bowl LVII healthy scratch. McKinnon played 30 offensive snaps in the Super Bowl.

While Edwards-Helaire’s first-round contract runs through 2023, this latest McKinnon agreement looks set to greenlight more of the Pacheco-McKinnon tandem as the Chiefs begin their title defense.