How preparation without two stars helped the Kansas City Chiefs, Patrick Mahomes
Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes awoke Friday morning unsure who would be catching his passes on Sunday afternoon. Unsure whether, for the first time since he became a full-time starting quarterback in this league, he would have his tight end available.
It might have been the best thing for him.
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Travis Kelce and Tyreek Hill are two of the most talented and irreplaceable players at their respective positions. They are not only productive but unique in the way they provide that production, and the Chiefs are undoubtedly at their best when they are available.
But their absences — and in the case of Hill, just the mere potential of his absence — cornered the Chiefs into their most comfortable offensive game plan.
Just go play, 15.
An offense without the NFL’s top receiving tight end and with the league’s second leading wide receiver operating in a reduced role did not miss a beat in a 36-10 trouncing of a Steelers team fighting for the playoffs.
Why? The man running the show. Mahomes completed 23 of 30 passes, without a care for who caught them, and finished with 258 yards and three touchdowns. He attempted one pass in the fourth quarter.
“It’s going to be underscored here, I know, but this is one of his great games,” coach Andy Reid said. “The way he was seeing things out there and handling himself out there against one of the better pass defenses in the National Football League. My hat goes off to him.”
It’s not an ah-ha moment, but maybe it is a reminder — whether a necessary one or not.
Hill and Kelce are stars who, as Mahomes put it earlier this week, can run routes “no one else in the world really can.” There’s a reason the Chiefs design plays to get them the football. Hill entered the day second in the NFL in receptions and is on his way to breaking the franchise’s single-season catches record — set by Kelce last year.
But during a week of planning as though neither would be available because they were placed on the reserve/COVID-19 list — Hill passed protocols on Saturday, while Kelce sat out — the Chiefs didn’t bother with feeding their most talented.
They just ran the offense. They asked Mahomes to take over. You pick the target. Don’t worry about who’s on the receiving end.
“Whenever guys get their opportunities, they can step up and make plays. I’m just going to go through the reads,” Mahomes said. “I’m going to find the open guy. We have a lot of good players on this team that are going to make plays happen.”
Find the open guy. That’s most often Kelce and Hill, of course. But Mahomes played with a patience Sunday to wait on whomever that might be. On one touchdown throw to Byron Pringle — a sidearm dart through a tight window — he sat in the pocket for more than seven seconds. Stared at a defensive secondary that outnumbered his receiving options 2-to-1 and just waited on something to emerge.
And wouldn’t you know it, something did. An undrafted receiver got open.
On another snap, with nothing initially open, Mahomes weaved to his right for more time, pointed for running back Derrick Gore to go deep like some sort of backyard football setup, and then tossed a pass down the sideline. Went for 50 yards.
He did the same thing a week earlier in Los Angeles, his sheer will during three consecutive drives that will stand up as the moment that sent the Chiefs to a sixth straight AFC West title. He needed Kelce that night — the Chiefs don’t win without him.
But those drives on the West Coast and the encores Sunday in Kansas City bask in the same concept. This type of offense — Mahomes progressing through his reads, playing with a combination of patience freedom — with Hill and Kelce at full-go?
That’s precisely what has sent the Chiefs to three straight AFC Championship Games, to back-to-back Super Bowls.
“He never flinched,” Reid said. “He wanted the guys there — those are two good football players — but he never flinched on it.”
This story was originally published December 26, 2021 at 8:47 PM with the headline "How preparation without two stars helped the Kansas City Chiefs, Patrick Mahomes."