Herm Edwards is old school when it comes to his offensive philosophy. In his first year as the Kansas City Chiefs’ head coach after spending the previous five seasons as the coach of the Jets, Edwards believes that an offense should revolve around running the ball early and often.

When he joined the Chiefs, who play the Cleveland Browns on Sunday, Edwards must have thought it a perfect situation because the team has one of the league’s elite running backs, Larry Johnson. But Edwards’s love of the running game could take a heavy toll on Johnson. With 282 carries through 11 games, Johnson is on pace to tie Jamal Anderson’s NFL record of 410 carries in a season. Anderson set that record in 1998, suffered a serious knee injury in 1999, and was out of football after two more years. Anderson is one of many running backs who have declined precipitously after high-workload seasons. Others include Seattle’s Shaun Alexander, who led the league with 370 carries last year and has been injured most of this year, and Tennessee’s Eddie George, who led the league with 403 carries in his Pro Bowl 2000 season but was later plagued by nagging injuries and never again averaged even 3.5 yards a carry.

Edwards should know all about the tendency of running backs to break down because of overuse — it happened to him just a year ago. In 2004, as coach of the Jets, Edwards called on Curtis Martin to carry the ball 371 times. It paid off that season, as Martin had a careerhigh 1,697 yards and the Jets made the playoffs. But those 371 carries took a toll that cost the Jets and Martin down the road: Last year Martin had just 220 carries for 735 yards, and a knee injury ended his season. He hasn’t played at all this year and is unlikely ever to play again.

Perhaps Edwards hopes Johnson is well suited to absorbing punishment because he just turned 27, has no history of serious injuries, and has taken fewer hits over the course of his football life than most running backs at this stage in their careers. At Penn State, Johnson only became the starting running back as a senior, and he was spared a pounding in his first two NFL seasons, when he logged just 140 carries, spending most of his time on the bench behind Kansas City’s starter, Priest Holmes.

But there’s no reason for Edwards to give Johnson the ball so often, especially considering that he has a backup, Michael Bennett, who is more than capable. The 5-foot-9, 207-pound Bennett is a former Big Ten track champion at Wisconsin and one of the fastest backs in football. He makes for a nice change of pace with the 6-foot-1, 230-pound Johnson. So far this year Bennett has carried the ball only 25 times, but he’s made the most of it, averaging 6.8 yards a carry. Bennett lacks the durability to be an every-down running back for a full season, but he runs well enough that Edwards and Chiefs offensive coordinator Mike Solari should expand his role. In the Chiefs’ 19–10 Thanksgiving win over the Denver Broncos, Johnson had 34 carries while Bennett had two. If Edwards wanted his running backs to get 36 carries against Denver, a more sensible breakdown would have been something like 25 for Johnson and 11 for Bennett.

Solari has been an assistant at Kansas City since 1997, but this is his first year calling the plays. Edwards didn’t stand in the way of last year’s offensive coordinator, Al Saunders, leaving for the Washington Redskins in part because Saunders runs a complex offense while Edwards likes Solari’s simpler approach. Johnson started this season slowly in that simplified offense, averaging 71 rushing yards in his first five games, but he has averaged 141 rushing yards in his six games since then. That turnaround (which was aided by the emergence of Kris Wilson, a superb blocker who plays fullback and tight end, and the jelling of the offensive line, which shuffled its starters early this year) has Johnson playing his best football as the Chiefs head into a December playoff push. But if Edwards wants Johnson to continue playing his best football, he needs to reduce his workload.