Just two weeks after logging a season-high in touches and snaps, Chiefs running back Jamaal Charles will miss Sunday's game against the Indianapolis Colts because of lingering problems in his surgically repaired right knee.
"The knee, it was up and down," Chiefs coach Andy Reid said. "We'll just back him off here and see if we can't get that thing to settle down."
Charles, 29, logged a single touch and two snaps in Sunday's win over the New Orleans Saints. The reduced workload came after he recorded 11 touches in 15 snaps in the Chiefs' 26-10 win over Oakland on Oct. 16, his second game of the season. He also played briefly at Pittsburgh.
On Monday, Reid said Charles' drop in snaps against the Saints had more to do with his injury _ he's still working his way back to normal after tearing his anterior cruciate ligament last October _ than the effectiveness of his 24-year-old replacement, Spencer Ware, who is enjoying a very strong season.
Reid added that Charles' knee "acted up" during last weekend's game, and the Chiefs want to handle that accordingly.
"Yeah, you have to be smart with it," Reid said. "He might take a step back and come forward with something better. That's what you try to do. We're never going to put him out there if it's not right. That's just not going to happen. It doesn't matter who the player is _ that's how we roll."
Ware has logged 95 carries for 492 yards _ an average of 5.2 yards per carry _ and two touchdowns. He has also emerged as a factor in the passing game, catching 15 passes for 285 yards and a touchdown.
Charles' absence Sunday means the only other healthy tailback, aside from Ware, on the Chiefs' 53-man roster will be Charcandrick West, who battled ankle and elbow problems earlier this season. West was actually the Chiefs' leading rusher last year, with 634 yards and four touchdowns in 160 carries, though Ware boasted a superior yards-per-carry average (5.6 to West's 4.0).
The Chiefs have the option of calling up one of their two running backs from the practice squad, as Darrin Reaves, 23, impressed during the preseason, while the club signed 23-year old rookie Zac Brooks, a former seventh-round pick of the Seattle Seahawks, on Thursday.
On Friday, Reid said that's unlikely to happen.
"We won't do that," Reid said. "We're alright with it. Some of the young guys can play there."
Reid is referring to the Chiefs' pair of smallish but dynamic skill-position threats: fifth-round rookie Tyreek Hill and three-year veteran De'Anthony Thomas.
Hill, who is listed at 5 feet, 10 inches and 185 pounds, has logged five carries for 17 yards this season. Most of those carries have come on jet sweeps, but he occasionally lines up at running back, a position he played some in college.
Thomas, a fourth-round pick in 2014 who sat out the first four games of this season, has seen his workload increase the last two weeks, when he has logged a total of 23 offensive snaps. He hasn't recorded a carry this season, but the 5-foot-9, 176-pound Thomas has rushed 23 times for 147 yards _ a sterling average of 6.4 yards per carry _ over the course of his career.
"Yeah, I'm playing everywhere _ that's what I do," Thomas said. "I've been doing it all my life. I don't even have a certain position I play. I could play wherever they need me to go."
Thomas added that people needn't worry about his size, or Hill's, for that matter. They may be small for running backs, but they can do the job.
"Size doesn't matter at all," Thomas said. "The game matters, knowing what's going on. Making people miss."
