‘Let’s go do something special.’ A Patrick Mahomes speech sparked Chiefs’ big comeback
The lead had ballooned to three touchdowns, a blistering of boos overcoming a jam-packed Arrowhead Stadium, whose history reminded those filling it to brace for disappointment.
Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes turned his back to the field. Ignored the plays. Ignored the Houston Texans being on the verge of stretching the lead to 24 points in the AFC Divisional Round game of the NFL playoffs Sunday afternoon.
Ignored that history.
He focused instead on his offensive teammates, his eyes locking on the east bench on the Chiefs’ sideline. His ensuing message addressed some of the X’s and O’s of the Texans’ man-to-man defense, a scheme for which they had prepared the entire week.
But that wasn’t the portion that stuck with his teammates.
“Let’s go do something special,” they recalled him saying as a walk-off line of sorts.
Everything had gone wrong in those first 15 minutes. Dropped passes. The blocked punt. A muffed punt return. Any number of those miscues could have been remembered for the next eight months, their impact dissected like an offsides flag, a coin toss or whistle for forward progress.
The Chiefs knew to keep playing, of course. Knew there was time left. Knew the capability of their offense.
But after Sunday’s 51-31 victory, a game in which Mahomes threw for five touchdowns, Chiefs players pointed back to the words that arrived only five seconds into the second quarter. The deficit at that point was 21.
“We were fired up,” Chiefs lineman Stefen Wisniewski said. “We weren’t down. We weren’t feeling sorry for ourselves. We weren’t sad. We were honestly kind of fired up.”
In a man who turned 24 just three months ago, the Chiefs have a quarterback who runs counter to everything in their dismal playoff history. In his play. In his DNA. “Thank God we’ve got Pat Mahomes,” defensive end Frank Clark said later.
It all crystallized in the moments after every touchdown — and there were a lot of them, with the Chiefs scoring on seven straight drives. Mahomes ran nearly the length of the field each time, 70-yard sprints as he emphatically motioned fans to rejuvenate the noise.
A crowd willing a team? How about a player willing a crowd?
“Having those fans that are loud and giving us passion, that momentum, the whole thing — you feel that as a team,” Mahomes said. “So I went to make sure the fans were still in it. That we weren’t going to give up. We were going to fight until the end.”
On the field, Mahomes put together an all-time great playoff performance, a collection of three quarters as good as any in Chiefs history. Heck, NFL history.
He’s the youngest player to throw for five touchdowns in a playoff game. He’s only the second to hit four touchdowns in a single quarter. In his second season as a starting quarterback, he’s already just one touchdown shy of the franchise career record. He has eight. Alex Smith had nine.
He shot-putted one touchdown lob Sunday. Threw another sidearm as he was falling to the grass. Fired another against his body as he was running straight toward the sideline. Off-script or sticking with it, the Texans had no answer. “It is hard to stop him,” Houston coach Bill O’Brien said bluntly.
Mahomes is back in the AFC Championship Game for the second straight season. The Chiefs’ wretched playoff history has been altered, at least for a week. And Mahomes has provided a reason to believe that change could be long-lasting.
Even if not all fans had bought in. A video of one leaving the stadium went viral during the game, its views exploding as the Mahomes-led comeback surged.
The news of this man’s departure — which he said would help the team because he’s a jinx — made its way back to Mahomes after the victory. Mahomes’ message had sunk in with his teammates over the previous couple of hours, and he talked about the importance of everyone remaining on board.
The man who didn’t?
“Watch the next game at home,” Mahomes quipped with a smile.
This story was originally published January 12, 2020 at 7:58 PM.