Chiefs Roster: Carson Steele unsure how running back lineup will change

When the Kansas City Chiefs go on the road to face the Atlanta Falcons in this week’s edition of NBC’s “Sunday Night Football,” one of the team’s most watched-players will be running back Carson Steele.

That’s because starter Isiah Pacheco is expected to miss at least 6-8 weeks following surgery for the fractured fibula he sustained in Week 2’s 26-25 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals. On Wednesday, head coach Andy Reid acknowledged the two-time Super Bowl champion’s recovery could extend into the 2025 season.

Steele — a rookie undrafted free agent who split his college days between Ball State and UCLA — is among the players who will be asked to step up in Pacheco’s absence. Speaking in the locker room on Wednesday, the first-year pro expressed concern for his teammate — and cited one of Reid’s favorite sayings.

“If anybody’s going to come back bigger and better from it, it’ll be Pacheco,” he predicted. “I feel bad for him — but hopefully, everything goes well [and] he comes back really fast.

“We just have this ‘next man up’ mentality. Everybody’s going to get reps, so everybody’s really working in, coming up and kind of joining as a team to get better.”

It is not likely the team will ask Steele to handle all of Pacheco’s ever-increasing workload, which included 19 carries before he was injured on Sunday. But although he can’t exactly remember the most carries he’s had in a game, Steele knows he can handle it.

“[In] college?” he asked. “In my Ball State days, I couldn’t tell you. Probably 30-something carries for sure. I still have it in my roots. I’ve just got to get back to it.”

Even though he hasn’t yet shown it, Steele also believes his time at UCLA prepared him for the NFL’s passing game.

“I haven’t seen many pass catches coming into the games in the regular season,” he admitted. “[But] I feel very comfortable with it. UCLA was a big pass-catching offense. I feel really comfortable about that — some running back routes [and] stuff like that. I try to get open as much as I can.”

But against the Bengals, Steele made a costly error. Late in the second quarter, he lost a fumble on a three-yard rush. Cincinnati took possession at the Kansas City 46-yard line, leading to a field goal that gave it a six-point halftime lead.

With a less-patient coaching staff, that might have been enough for the rookie to land on the bench — but Steele credited his coaches and teammates for helping him rebound from the error. He got four more carries in the game — including the two plays preceding placekicker Harrison Butker’s game-winning field goal as time expired.

“Everybody makes mistakes,” observed the running back. “Even at the biggest level, the biggest guys make mistakes. You’ve got to have that next-play mentality.

“I was trying to hold myself down in that game, but all the coaches and veterans came up to me. [They said,] ‘You’ve got to forget it and keep moving on.’ That kind of helped me get that extra third-and-1 conversion — and stuff like that — after the fumble.”

Chiefs fans will remember an early-career miscue by another former Mid-American Conference running back. After being selected out of Toledo in 2017’s third round, Kareem Hunt lost a fumble on his first career touch against the New England Patriots. Hunt finished that game with 246 scrimmage yards — and eventually led the league in rushing in his rookie season.

More than five years after his controversial exit from the team, Hunt joined Kansas City’s practice squad on Wednesday.

“I ended up meeting him today,” Steele said of his new teammate. “He’s a great guy. [I’m] really excited to get going forward there.”

During Pacheco’s absence, the Chiefs are also expected to rely on veteran Samaje Perine, who has referred to Steele as a “perfectionist.”

“I just try to get all the little details I possibly can,” said Steele of his teammate’s characterization. “Sometimes, it makes me overthink things a little bit — especially coming in as an undrafted guy. [I] really came in and tried to perfect everything.”

For what it’s worth, Steele sees Perine — who joined the Chiefs after he was cut by the Denver Broncos at the league’s roster deadline — as a fellow perfectionist.

“What, two weeks, I think, he’s been with us?” asked Steele. “He’s really sound with everything: running all the plays, stuff like that. He’s almost looked like he’s been here before [or] been here for a long time. So, it’s cool to learn from him as well.”

Steele doesn’t yet know if he will be in the starting lineup for his first career road contest. But regardless of how he is used in Atlanta, he will continue placing the team first.

“It would mean everything,” he said of a potential starting role, “just coming from the Cinderella story being an undrafted guy.

“[But] if it doesn’t happen, I’m going to just keep taking the role I have — and get all the running backs some work in there. [We’ll do] whatever we can do to [give] the team success.”