No one runs as angry as Isiah Pacheco: The running back of the Kansas City Chiefs has made a meteoric rise as a rookie and mutated into an explosive secret weapon. Terrible childhood tragedies spur him on.
start-up. Head down. rum. Isiah Pacheco slams into the first fridge incarnate. never mind With his shoulder he clears the defender out of the way. rum. Even the second opponent can’t stop the 178 centimeter running back of the Kansas City Chiefs. A third throws himself at him from behind, but Pacheco manages to take a few more steps before he is finally thrown to the ground with the football buried deep in his arms.
Small, nimble and almost unstoppable staccato steps with mighty power behind them. This is Isiah Pacheco. The Chiefs’ new secret weapon on their way to – they hope in Kansas City – their third championship after 1970 and 2020. The run through the three defenders is the game-winning first down against the Denver Broncos in December. The 22-year-old delivered quite a few of these wild scenes in his first season in the NFL. Nobody expected that except him – and heals one of the few weaknesses in the game of the title contender.
A lot can happen in a year. The rookie is drafted before game time in the seventh round, in the 251st position. Only eleven picks before the very last. Before that, he hadn’t even attended an NFL game as a spectator. Within a few months, however, Pacheco experiences a monumental rise and becomes (along with 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy) the big surprise of the season. In the best offense in the league, the running back rises to the player with by far the most yards run (830) and five touchdowns.
Pacheco scores a touchdown in his regular-season debut. In his first game of the playoffs, he ran straight for 95 yards. Initially deployed on the special teams, the rookie quickly eclipses Clyde Edwards-Helaire and Jerick McKinnon as running back premier workhorses – and quickly turns into an explosive surprise.
The Chiefs have been looking for someone like him for a long time, and he’s one of the reasons they got into the Super Bowl this year. Kansas City has the best quarterback in the world in Patrick Mahomes and can always count on him to generate a productive passing game. But in the long run, the game, which is focused on the playmaker and his passes, becomes too predictable. What the Chiefs lacked before the season was a powerful and fast ball carrier that could throw itself into any opponent and dance through defenses. No duel is too bad. Who is able to gain important yards and first downs from a few centimeters of space. Who sometimes takes over a game – as happened when Mahomes injured his ankle in the playoffs against the Jacksonville Jaguars.
What Pacheco is doing as a rookie is phenomenal. The 22-year-old acts much more successfully and grown up than expected. Its already legendary, fast clocked runs are christened “angry”. And indeed, no one runs as aggressively, as fearlessly, as Pacheco. If you watch him run through the bulky, fridge-like defenders, you see a young man running to the ground with emotion, with anger. Yes, sometimes all over the world. Because Pacheco has every reason to be emotional and angry. He knows what loss means. Because there are several tragedies that spur him on to always give one hundred percent and more.
With Puerto Rican roots, Pacheco grew up in New Jersey. Pacheco has a particularly close relationship with his older sister. She’s been coming to his games since high school, slipping him a few dollar bills here and there. In 2017, the 24-year-old was shot dead in her apartment. Her partner gets caught for the crime, her young son moves in with Pacheco’s mother. “My sister was my best friend,” says the running back in deep sorrow. The then 18-year-old and his mother often cannot sleep at night afterwards. They then watch NFL highlights on Youtube. A year and a half earlier, his 29-year-old brother had been stabbed.
It must have been raging inside Pacheco at the time. And still rage. The pain may never completely leave him again. But the rookie has found an outlet for his emotions. He lets them out on the field. His former college coach tells the New York Post that Pacheco’s work ethic is largely responsible for his meteoric rise. “I don’t think anyone could have predicted that he would become so successful so quickly. But I told everyone who came to Rutgers University to see him, ‘He’s the toughest practice player I’ve ever coached.'”
When asked by ntv.de, quarterback Mahomes also explained in Phoenix before the Super Bowl: “Not only does he run so hard in the game, he also trains so hard that we sometimes have to hold him back: ‘Hey boy, we’re practicing here without protective equipment !’ He will do what he does best on Sunday as well.” start-up. Head down. shoulder out. rum.
Pacheco’s story is just one of those stories loved in America, a country steeped in founding myths. “Inspirational” they say there. Defy all resistance, overcome all hurdles. If Pacheco wins the Super Bowl in his first season on Sunday, it would be like watching a cheesy ending from a Hollywood movie. “The doubters should be told that you can always achieve something if you dream big, get it, grab it,” notes Pacheco himself in the myth-speak. “And that’s something I’ve always had in mind.”
When Isiah Pacheo still lived with his parents in New Jersey, he performed the same ritual every night. The obituaries of his siblings are pinned to a mirror. Just before he goes to sleep, he reads them and says a prayer. “I dedicate this time to them,” he said at the time. “I thank them for looking down on me. I will continue to do things in a positive way to make them proud of me.” That means for him: start. Head down. rum.
