Chiefs RB Carson Steele can be so much more than a preseason folk hero

Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports

Can Chiefs RB Carson Steele go from undrafted to a key contributor in Kansas City this season?

When you’re watching and analyzing NFL players in the preseason, the obvious question is: Can they take what they’ve done in exhibition games and apply it when it all becomes real in a tangible regular-season sense?

One of the most intriguing rookies in the 2024 NFL preseason is Kansas City Chiefs running back Carson Steele, and it’s not just because of his work on the field – though that’s been more than solid.

The UCLA alum by way of Ball State was undrafted despite gaining 3,259 yards and scoring 28 touchdowns on 648 carries over three collegiate seasons. Steele averaged 5.0 yards per carry in college, forced an astonishing 184 missed tackles, had 44 runs of 15 or more yards, and had some amazing highlight runs both with the Cardinals in 2021 and 2022, and with the Bruins in 2023.

Still, Steele went undrafted. As NFL.com’s Lance Zierlein wrote of Steele’s prospects in the pros before the draft in his own scouting report: “Steele is a ball of muscle in human form. He has the contact balance and leg strength to squeeze the most out of a carry. He has decent vision but can be a bit sluggish with short-area cuts, allowing the defense to quickly rally and tackle. Steele’s value will be as a short-yardage specialist who can help wear down defenses in a downhill attack.”

That was the general perception. The reality for Steele has been something else. He’s an alligator owner (Crocky-J), he looks like a Spartacus extra, and his bullwhip running style has endeared him not only to Chiefs Kingdom, but to NFL fans in general. Kansas City already had enough personnel riches before the potential of hitting hard on a 6’1, 225-pound running back, which begs that old question: If Carson Steele makes the final 53 after cuts, how much of what we’ve seen in the preseason will actually stick?

The statistics are certainly impressive. In three preseason games with the Chiefs, Steele totaled 87 yards and two touchdowns on just 11 carries. He forced nine missed tackles, 81 of those 87 yards were after first contact, and three of those 11 runs went for 15 or more yards. And his work in both zone and gap run schemes seems to fit perfectly with a team in the Chiefs that is as variable from a run game perspective as any football team you’ll see.

When you go to the tape, starting with his NFL debut against the Jacksonville Jaguars on Aug. 10, Steele’s actual NFL potential becomes clear. This 20-yard run with 8:03 left in the first half showed how Steele can get a full head of steam going on a delay run, and how he can pop defenders (in this case, four different Jaguars defenders) to get downfield.

Steele had just three carries for eight yards in Week 2 of the preseason against the Detroit Lions, but in the second quarter of Kansas City’s Thursday finale against the Chicago Bears, he turned it up again. The Chiefs started a drive at the 50-yard line with 8:57 left in the first half. And that’s where Steele went nuclear. On the first play of the drive, Steele took the handoff from backup quarterback Chris Oladokun, and put his ankle in it for 18 yards behind a power pulling scheme.

One play later, Steele took the ball on an inside zone play, and nearly had himself a 32-yard touchdown run. The refs called it back to the Chicago 1-yard line, but this was another example of Steele’s decisiveness, bounce, acceleration, and refusal to be denied in the open field. Former NFL offensive lineman and current tape guru Geoff Schwartz broke this play down, and since he knows a million more things about anybody’s run game than I do, I’ll happily defer to him.

Of course, Steele was going to get the ball at the 1-yard line – we’ve all learned from Super Bowl XLIX, haven’t we – and of course, he was going to score that touchdown.

Three runs, one drive, several unhappy Bears. That was Carson Steele’s brief reign of terror in his final preseason game as a rookie.

“Yeah, listen, we will evaluate him,” head coach Andy Reid said after the Bears game. “He looked good tonight. A physical kid. I know the guys were excited when he was carrying it, but will see. He is a good football player though. It didn’t really look like they wanted to tackle him. That’s a plus if you’re a running back.”

Reid had more to say about his newest star.

“If he stayed at Ball State he probably would’ve gone down as one of the great ones at the university there, but he transferred and ended up playing there at UCLA. That’s saying something from an experience standpoint of a bigger school. We knew he could run the football, and his ability to pass-protect, and play special teams and do those things. He’s done a pretty good job at it.”

Earlier in the week, offensive coordinator Matt Nagy praised Steele, with some caveats.

“To see Carson do everything [it] entails to be a running back,” Nagy said on Aug. 20, when asked what more he needed to see. “He had that one big run in the first game. We were able to see some of that stuff in training camp and some of the practices, but that’s not all about just playing running back. You’ve got to be able to protect, you’ve got to know where to go, you’ve got to be good on special teams. So, more opportunities [and] more reps are going to be valuable for him and then for us, to be able to see where he’s at. Again, another great kid. I think back to when I first met him in OTAs and he’s in there every day [at] meetings early, [and] he’s in there trying to learn this offense. Now, he can go out there and try to play, and put it on us to see what he can do.”

Regarding his pass-protection abilities, Steele’s efforts to pick up blitzing linebacker Ty Summers on Carson Wentz’s touchdown pass to Xavier Worthy against the Lions should answer a few questions, at the very least.

As to Steele’s special teams acumen, he’s had a couple of bomb squad plays, which should impress his coaches.

Steele has most likely escaped the Turk when the deadline for final cuts to 53-man rosters happens on Tuesday, but where does he fit in this offense? In conjunction with Isiah Pacheco, the 2022 seventh-round star out of Rutgers, Steele could give the Chiefs one of the most powerful – and inexpensive – one-two punches in the league.

Like Pacheco, Steele has an innate sense of how and when to hit the gaps as they’re opened (Pacheco is specifically outstanding at getting through skinny gaps), and like Pacheco, Steele runs as if someone just exacted an egregious emotional injury on his person, and he’s out for revenge. Not at all bad if you can have two of those headbangers in an offense with the best player in the league at quarterback, and at least one new vertical threat in the aforementioned Mr. Worthy.

So, if Carson Steele starts making serious gains once the regular season comes around, maybe don’t be too surprised. Because the once-underrated rookie has passed every test thrown at him so far.