How one Patrick Mahomes throw got the Chiefs back to playing like their old selves
The identity of the Chiefs’ offense embraced a significant change in the opening week — it skipped the big play. Bypassed the deep ball from the quarterback best equipped to throw them. Settled for chunks of yards here and there rather than gaining them in one big swoop.
But on Sunday, in a game-changing moment during a 23-20 overtime win against the Chargers, the Chiefs provided themselves a necessary reminder.
It’s the spectacular play that defines this offense. That is its identity.
And, boy, they got a beauty.
Patrick Mahomes rolled to his right and unleashed a throw on the move that traveled some 55 yards in the air before landing in the outstretched arms of Tyreek Hill. A fourth-quarter touchdown released the frustrations of an afternoon that started awry and sparked an offense that spent the initial three quarters stagnant.
“Pat, I feel like he’s in a lane of his own,” Hill said.
“Those two have a special connection between them,” Chiefs coach Andy Reid would add.
For nearly three quarters Sunday in Los Angeles, the Chiefs offense resembled the strategy of a week earlier, one required against deep-lying safeties. They circumvented the long passes. Eyed the underneath routes.
Except the underneath stuff wasn’t there, either. Or at least the execution lacked. Mahomes completed only 8 of 19 passes for 60 yards before halftime. An array of pressure from the Chargers decimated timing patterns. The Chiefs punted 5 times in the first 32 minutes.
Through the season’s initial seven quarters, the Chiefs had yet to complete a pass that traveled 20 yards in the air downfield.
In one flash, they got one. And it got them going.
The offense — the version we’ve come to know since Mahomes took its reigns — was back.
“I think we kind of found a rhythm there at the end of the game, where we were able to move the ball and find ways to get the ball down the field an take shots when they were there,” Mahomes said.
The Chiefs had game-planned the route throughout the week — a diagram that had Hill in the right slot on a go route that faded a bit toward the corner. They knew they would run it at some point.
But when?
Absent a consistent tempo early, the play’s effectiveness would diminish. Finally collecting some footing as the fourth quarter began, Reid called for it.
It unfolded just as expected — a fake handoff shifted the defense to the left momentarily before Mahomes sprinted to his right. His eyes never left Hill, who out-raced a pair of defenders, lunged forward to make the catch and then somersaulted into the end zone before he was touched.
The catch nearly matched the throw.
Nearly.
“Pat just having the arm strength and the accuracy and just the trust to even throw that is amazing to me,” Hill said. “It’s a great ball. He kind of overthrew me, because I had to lean forward a little bit, but it was a good ball.”
The play returned this offense to normalcy. At least for 15 minutes.
Mahomes acknowledged some frustration with the way the game had developed, a sentiment caught on camera at times. The irritation, he would explain, rested in his own play.
Then the pass happened. And then Mahomes became Mahomes.
The Chiefs were offered two possessions after Hill’s touchdown. On the first, they tied the game and sent it to overtime, Mahomes using his arm and legs to equal fortune. And on the next, in overtime, Mahomes led the game-winning drive.
His second half line: 19 of 28 for 242 yards.
Just like old times, right?
“I think the best thing is when you have Tyreek, Mecole (Hardman), (Demarcus Robinson) and Sammy (Watkins), it’s almost if I threw the ball further than those defenders, they’re going to get there,” Mahomes said. “That’s what I’m trying to do — put it out there and let those guys make plays.”
This story was originally published September 20, 2020 at 8:56 PM.