The Athletic Football Show is previewing all 32 teams leading up to the start of the 2026 NFL season. Below are select quotes from the show’s preview of the Kansas City Chiefs. The quotes are edited for clarity. You can watch the whole preview on YouTube and in the embedded video below, or listen to the full AFC West preview wherever you get your podcasts.Derrik Klassen on what about the Chiefs most excites him: “This is a team that for years has not had an explosive runner and really has struggled to gain explosive plays, and they just signed Kenneth Walker to a huge deal, and that’s kind of his whole deal.I think sometimes it’s hard to figure out exactly how much a running back’s value is going to cascade to the rest of the team. In the case of the Kansas City Chiefs where they were so historically bad at generating these field-flipping runs, bringing in a player like Kenneth Walker, where he obviously gives that to you, it’s pretty easy to see how that actually adds something to this offense. I do think that that gets them back to the formula that was working for them in 2019 and 2020, where they were more explosive on offense. I just really believe in what Ken Walker is going to do here.”Robert Mays on what he’ll be watching the first month of the season: “I’m interested in the structure of the offense, because this is a team that was incredibly siloed. Beyond the changes of what running the ball under center could do for their explosiveness, I just think having more optionality and murkiness about what you’re doing situationally is huge.