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Will Isiah Pacheco start for the Kansas City Chiefs when he returns? John Johnson breaks down the Isiah Pacheco return timeline and fantasy football outlook.
Kansas City Chiefs running back Isiah Pacheco (knee) suffered a knee injury near the end of his team's Week 8 game against the Washington Commanders, unfortunately.
He was diagnosed with an MCL sprain, and he's very likely to be ruled out of the Week 9 contest, as he wasn't able to practice on Wednesday or Thursday this week. This type of injury typically takes at least a few weeks to recover from -- he's likely to miss between two and four games.
Kansas City has a duo of other RBs, though -- Kareem Hunt and Brashard Smith -- that have both been effective at times with the ball in their hands. So will Pacheco start when he returns or will his RB1 job be taken over? Let's dive in.
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Will Isiah Pacheco Start For The Chiefs When He Returns?
He will probably remain the starter, whatever "starter" means here. Even in his RB1 role, he's been mostly unproductive for fantasy football for a few reasons. First, his rushing volume simply isn't that impressive -- through eight games, he has just 78 total carries, averaging under 10 per contest.
Second, his goal-line role has been mostly usurped by his backup, Hunt. Pacheco has just one rushing touchdown on the season as a result. RBs without many rushing touchdowns are much more dependent on receiving work to remain fantasy-relevant.
Andy Reid today on rookie RB Brashard Smith
"We’re moving him all over the place. I wouldn’t see that part changing, we’re going to keep utilizing his talents."
Smith lines up out wide / in slot 39% of his snaps (PFF)#Chiefs are developing a positionless personnel group 😈 pic.twitter.com/4EZeQsD77r
— Ron Kopp Jr (@RonOnChiefs) October 23, 2025
Yet Pacheco doesn't have much of a pass-catching role, either. It's been Smith, the rookie, who's gotten the most receiving work of the three RBs to this point. He's schemed up a lot of designed targets, which makes sense, because he played wide receiver in high school and college before switching to RB for his final season.
Smith has better hands, is a better route-runner, doesn't drop the ball as many times, and is better at navigating in the open field with the ball in his hands. Pacheco has made key drops on what could have been big plays, and the coaching staff likely wasn't too happy about it.
He'll be the RB1, most likely, but he's stuck in a committee backfield.
Isiah Pacheco Fantasy Football Outlook
Even with an uptick in rushing work over the last few weeks, Pacheco remains one of the biggest busts in fantasy football this season. While he was mostly drafted in the fifth round and later in fantasy drafts, he was a starter on many fantasy rosters this season, and dragged down his teams massively.
Andy Reid: Let me scheme up a great play to isolate Josh Simmons on the left side as a lead blocker to get a touchdown
Isiah Pacheco: Nah I'm good pic.twitter.com/YIKgptv58c
— JohnJohn Analysis (@JohnJohnalytics) September 6, 2025
The fourth-year pro logged scores of 4.8, 3.9, 5.8, 8.6, 6.1, and 5.8 PPR fantasy points this season. He's ranked as the RB37 overall through eight weeks. Those scores lost a ton of fantasy managers their matchups when he was in their starting lineups -- you simply can't tolerate a player that scores in the single digits most of the time.
In many leagues, he became a roster clogger, because fantasy managers didn't feel like they could drop him, but didn't feel comfortable starting him until things improved. He's been wasting bench space ever since, and making it more difficult for managers to make speculative moves on potential high-upside players.
It will likely remain tough to trust Pacheco all season. Unless Hunt were to be injured, it's unlikely he'd get a workhorse role, and even if he did, he'll be restricted in the pass-catching department by Smith, who's clearly the superior receiver. Smith actually leads all NFL running backs in yards per route run by a country mile.
Smith averages 3.6 yards per route run. The second-highest mark for an RB is that of Atlanta Falcons tailback Bijan Robinson, who sits at 2.0 YPRR. So yeah, it's hard to trust Pacheco being worth starting in fantasy at all moving forward. He's a low-end RB3.
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Popular Week 9 Searches - Start/Sit Player Comparisons
Below are some popular Week 9 searches and comparisons from our 'Who To Start' tool for Tyrone Tracy Jr., Rico Dowdle, Bam Knight, Quentin Johnston, Kareem Hunt compared to others:
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