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even weeks into their bid for immortality, the Kansas City Chiefs are undefeated. They’ve ripped off wins against the likes of the Ravens, 49ers, and Bengals on their way to a 6-0 start. On defense, they’ve been elite, putting a succession of the game’s best quarterbacks through the blender. The back-to-back champs should have the feel of a runaway juggernaut, but something is amiss with KC’s offense.
Given his body of work, Patrick Mahomes is the best quarterback in the NFL. That isn’t an opinion, it’s a statement of fact. But through the opening stages of the season, the Chiefs have fielded a middling offense and Mahomes has been a statistically middling quarterback. The Chiefs’ offense has yet to score 30 points in a game, despite facing only one defense in the top 12 in EPA/play, a measure of a unit’s down-to-down effectiveness.
Hand Mahomes that kind of schedule in an ordinary year, and you could hand in your MVP ballot in October and hit the cocktail bar. Instead, the Chiefs’ quarterback is off to the worst regular season of his career, and Lamar Jackson is, correctly, favorite to win MVP for the second year in succession. Mahomes, on the other hand, is completing a solid 67% of his passes but has thrown only six touchdowns to eight interceptions. His passer rating through seven weeks (82.5) is 20 points below his career average (102.5). If that’s not enough, Mahomes has had more games this season where he’s thrown for fewer than 150 yards than he has games where he’s eclipsed 300.
“I just don’t think it’s normal for what you’ve seen from us because there’s not a lot of passing touchdowns,” Mahomes said this week. “There’s been a lot of turnovers, especially by me. So, I think it’s just showing the versatility of our team. It’s not just about me. It’s not just about the stats and the light show and stuff like that. It’s about playing team football.”
At his best, Mahomes is an offense unto himself: a slick playmaker who warps defenses, dicing them up from the pocket or extending plays to engineer shots downfield. But that version of Mahomes has yet to show up this season. These days, Mahomes plays with old-man savvy. On a possession-by-possession basis, he toggles personae. The old swashbuckling Mahomes is in there, ready to burst out when required. But Mahomes, who is still only 29, now spends prolonged stretches of games channeling late-stage Drew Brees, handing the ball off to the team’s bruising runners and methodically marching the Chiefs down the field.
As Mahomes says, that’s team football. But on Wednesday, the Chiefs traded for veteran receiver DeAndre Hopkins, an admission that the passing game is not clicking and that they need to find a quick fix.
Mahomes has the lowest average air yards in the league this season. He’s been more susceptible to pressure than in years past. For the first time in his career, he has been (somewhat) panicked by pressure. Most troubling, the big-time throws have largely vanished, while boneheaded decisions have crept into his game.
Patrick Mahomes’ 8 interceptions: 1- Bad throw 2- Bad 3- Incredible play ( low % throw) 4- Bad 5- Bad 6- Bounced off a WR hands 7- tipped at LOS 8- WR fell down after ball thrown Does he need to be better? Yes. Is it all on him? No. #ChiefsKingdom pic.twitter.com/fX0B7GKVex
Six games is a small sample size, but the start of this season is in many ways a continuation of a trend that kicked in last year. The Chiefs have become a hyper-efficient offense, focusing on their run game and banking on Mahomes to play mistake-free football in a more rhythm-based passing game. It’s a style that requires the quarterback to be flawless – and Mahomes has not always held up his end of the bargain.
Last season was supposed to be an anomaly though. The wonder of KC’s second-straight title was that they won the Super Bowl with an incomplete roster. Despite having Mahomes under center, the team’s passing game routinely stalled out in the regular season. Outside Travis Kelce, the team’s receiver room was filled with has-beens and could-bes, with the Chiefs relying on rookie Rashee Rice to bring some sizzle to a lackluster position group. By the time the playoffs rolled around though, the offense hit its stride: the Chiefs’ run-game hammered defensive fronts, Mahomes found chemistry with Rice, Kelce was at his best and the quarterback strapped on his cape in crucial moments. With a top-five defense and an outstanding offensive line, the champagne flowed.
That, though, was intended to be a one-year recipe. Early in Mahomes’ career, the Chiefs were a scoring machine so ruthless that they could chase a title without a defense. Last season, they won it all with a suffocating defense and a stumbling offense. This year, both were supposed to rise together.
The Chiefs addressed their weapons shortage in the offseason by drafting receiver Xavier Worthy and signing Hollywood Brown in free agency. Both were acquired to bring some pop to the passing game, helping to stretch the field vertically. The duo would clear out space so that Kelce, Rice, and Skyy Moore could attack underneath and extend drives or create yards after the catch. Pair a refreshed passing game with a bruising run game, and the team could lighten the load on Mahomes and prep the Dom Perignon.
But injuries have derailed those plans. Brown picked up an injury that is expected to sideline him for the entire regular season. Rice picked up a knee injury in week two and was placed on injured reserve, forcing the Chiefs to sign JuJu Smith-Schuster, who then picked up a hamstring injury against the Niners. That’s left the Chiefs with depleted options, with only Kelce a reliable target. Worthy has shown flashes as a rookie but hasn’t been a dependable contributor. Moore, a second-round pick in 2022, has as many catches as you would this season: zero. Despite missing two games, Rice is still tied for second on the team in targets, while Noah Gray, the team’s second tight end, is fourth in targets despite playing only half of the offensive snaps.
Receiver woes have forced the Chiefs to double down on a run-heavy approach, ramping up the pressure on Mahomes to be faultless. And that’s what is jarring this season: Mahomes continues to barf up ugly turnovers.
Mahomes is a walking firework. But his secret sauce has always been that he rarely puts the ball in harm’s way. In his first season as a starter, he threw 12 picks, but he threw only 11 in his next two seasons combined. Last season, though, he threw a career-high 14 interceptions as his touchdown total tumbled to 27, evidence of a quarterback working through teething pains with an ill-fitting receiving corps. In the playoffs, however, he didn’t throw a single turnover-worthy throw until the Super Bowl. This season the turnovers have returned. He’s already up to eight interceptions, putting him on track for a career-worst total – and six of those eight have come from clean pockets, and he has the highest turnover-worthy throw rate of his career, according to Pro Football Focus.
Not every interception has been Mahomes’s fault. Some have come via tipped balls. Others have been thanks to great defensive plays (the other guys get paid, too!). But given the shift in offensive focus, the turnovers have been more painful to the offense than in years past.
Hopkins is unlikely to be a one-man fix. It’s anyone’s guess how much tread is left in the tires of the 32-year-old, who is no longer at his peak. But if the receiver can offer reliable hands, it will be an upgrade on what Mahomes has worked so far this season.
With Hopkins in the fold, the Chiefs can continue to get by with this iteration of their offense as long as Mahomes tightens up with the ball. A quality defense, solid offensive line and a steady Mahomes are enough to make the Chiefs contenders, with a couple of virtuosic moments from the quarterback likely to tip them over the top.
Mahomes is judged by a different set of rules than everybody else. October numbers no longer matter; it’s about adding a ring in January. Nothing about the regular season struggles screams of a player in decline but speaks more of a quarterback adjusting to his circumstances.
It’s a long season. It will be fun watching Mahomes – again – work his way out of the fog.
