‘I saw this little hand pop up’: How that Patrick Mahomes to Tyreek Hill TD unfolded
Patrick Mahomes sought out Tyreek Hill to tell him how the play that sparked a Chiefs comeback came to fruition. How the play that prompted Hill to assert, “I’m (bleeping) fired up, man,” began with the innocuous motion mimicked by two kids playing football on the playground.
It started with a small hand in the air, the only thing Mahomes could actually see before launching a football that, despite him running full speed toward the sideline, would travel 49 yards in flight. The ball would land in Hill’s gut, and by the conclusion of the 75-yard sequence, the Chiefs’ 33-29 comeback win had its signature moment.
After the game, as Mahomes found Hill in the locker room, he shared the beginning of the story — about the part Hill couldn’t see but the only part Mahomes could.
“I saw this little hand pop up like this,” Mahomes said, putting his arm in the air to show what he meant. “I was just like, ‘if I can just throw it far enough...’”
To which Hill, generously listed at 5-foot-10, replied, “Come on, man.”
This is how a comeback started. How Mahomes traveled from a double-digit deficit to a winning locker room for the 10th time in his career.
A hand. It’s all he needed to see. He knew how the rest would play out.
The piece of the story he didn’t share with Hill? That wasn’t his first look. Not even the second, either.
Mahomes wanted to throw to Travis Kelce over the middle of the field, but the Browns adequately covered that option. He next looked toward Mecole Hardman, but the Browns covered that route, too.
The pressure beginning to enclose his pocket, he scrambled toward the right side line, trying to elude defensive tackle Jordan Elliott and create just enough separation. And then he let it fly, a 49-yard pass so ridiculous that you wonder how many quarterbacks would even attempt it, let alone execute it.
“How many times have we seen that?” Chiefs coach Andy Reid said. “It was pretty spectacular.”
That’s just half the play. On the other end, Hill actually had a step on Browns safety John Johnson. To be frank, the ball was underthrown. But given Hill’s speed and open path to the end zone, Johnson had to run full speed to attempt to catch up. As he did, Hill froze. Johnson couldn’t stop his momentum as quickly.
Game over.
“If not his speed, that’s probably the best thing that he does — adjusting when the ball is in the air,” Mahomes said. “I think it’s a thing where if he gets past you, you’re trying to get there with everything you have, so (Johnson) was running as hard as he could. He had to adjust and make a play.”
Along with it, the game’s slowly-shifting momentum put on its accelerators. Chiefs edge rusher Chris Jones recorded a sack on the ensuing defensive play. The Chiefs got a stop. The punter dropped a snap. The Chiefs turned that into a touchdown, too.
And in the matter of three minutes, the Chiefs had flipped a nine-point deficit into a four-point lead and the final margin of victory.
“You can see a play like that just create energy, — just like that,” Hill said, emphasizing its quickness. “It created a spar in our whole defense.
“It’s that fast.”
This story was originally published September 12, 2021 at 8:53 PM.