How KC Chiefs star Patrick Mahomes became (in terms of stats) the NFL’s most careful QB
On the high school fields of Kansas City, teenagers with big aspirations are learning to throw a football like Patrick Mahomes.
OK, maybe not exactly like Patrick Mahomes.
But high school kids are no longer exclusively training the form-perfect passes inside the pocket. They are rehearsing off-platform, off-script and just plain off-balance throws.
Because that’s how this all started. In Tyler, Texas, nearly a decade ago, Mahomes built the foundation of an NFL MVP with the same methods that are now spilling into backyards of Kansas City suburbs. He practiced the throws you’re supposed to make. And then he drilled the throws you’re taught to never try.
What can look like chaos in a Patrick Mahomes play has deeply-rooted organization — from the way it’s drilled day after day, practice after practice, to the manner in which he works out during the offseason, preparing his body to make movements most might consider unusual.
The end result: While there is perhaps no better proverbial fastball in the NFL than the one barreling from the arm of a man who once threw a baseball 95 miles per hour, it’s one pitch in a repertoire flush with options you didn’t hear much about 20, 30, 40 years ago.
“Part of playing with Patrick Mahomes,” teammate and tight end Travis Kelce once said. “is always being ready for the unexpected.”
Just last week, Mahomes went more slow-pitch softball than four-seamer, lowering his arm beneath his knee for a 1-yard touchdown toss to his running back. He did that in training camp, by the way. The fastball would follow on the ensuing touchdown, a quick dart to receiver Tyreek Hill. Did plenty of that, too. And then came a shotput more than a traditional throw, a shovel pass to a tight end for yet another score. Oh, yeah, that play showed up in camp, too.
In years past, we’ve seen a left-handed toss and a throw in which his eyes gazed right as his arm threw left. The no-look, for short.
Mahomes throws by any means necessary, and anecdotally, that’s a trait growing in very specific circumstances as the Chiefs defense fails to get stops. (More on that later.)
He is a one-man spectacle, a prime-time TV mainstay, a player willing to try anything, no matter if it’s been tried before.
But for all of the chaos, here he sits, the most risk-averse quarterback in the NFL.
Seriously.
Aggressive by nature. But not in his throws
Eight years ago, the NFL began testing new technologies to gather a fuller picture of its game and the players within it.
In 2016, among its new data points, Next Gen Stats captured information on the risk-taking nature of each passer. With a stat it calls aggressiveness percentage, Next Gen tracks exactly how many throws a quarterback attempts that are into tight coverage — defined when there is a defender within 1 yard of a receiver.
In the first five seasons totaling the data, no quarterback with at least six starts has had an aggressiveness percentage below 10%.
There’s one well beneath that bar now.
It’s only a month into the season, so small sample size and whatever, but Mahomes is pacing to be the most risk-averse quarterback since the league began tracking this data. Only 7.8% of his throws have been made into tight windows.
For all of the arm angles, all of the backyard football scrambles, all of the maneuvers in which high school kids now actually practice, Mahomes is the single most careful caretaker of the football.
“It’s something I have to continue to work on as my career goes on,” Mahomes said. “I have that aggressive nature. I want to try to make everything happen. I want to get a first down every single time. But at the end of the day, sometimes you have to punt.”
On the surface, the way Mahomes plays the position looks frenzied. If you didn’t know any better, you might think he’s a careless with the ball as any quarterback in the league.
Just the opposite. Why? He practices these things.
Those repetitions have never been about becoming more comfortable with risk. It’s about putting himself in a position to never really need to take one.
A jumbled scramble can allow a receiver more time to create an opening. The arm angles allow Mahomes to fit a football into that opening. A no-look throw can ensure a defender is not in front of the opening. They all have their purpose.
It’s become so matter of fact that even after his first three touchdowns Sunday came from an underhand, overhand and shovel, Chiefs running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire literally shrugged his shoulders when asked about it.
“We just go execute the plays,” Edwards-Helaire said, as if to imply this stuff should be considered commonplace.
We must mention there is more at play here. The very nature of Andy Reid’s offense is to scheme receivers open and to do it quickly. The whole idea is for guys to be open so that throwing into tight windows isn’t even necessary. That’s a factor here, and arguably a large one. But the broader story is a determination to take the right risk or even take none at all. It comes with time. With experience.
In 2018 and 2019, Mahomes’ aggressive percentage sat at 12.2%. He lowered it to 11.4% last year before the decline again this season.
The narrative that he takes more chances than the average quarterback but simply gets away with it? Based on fiction, not data.
Most of the time. If you think a year in which he’s already thrown four interceptions in four games is an odd time to be pacing the league in fewest tight-window throws, well, you might be onto something ...
How circumstance should dictate the risk
Three things are at odds here.
1) Patrick Mahomes wants to be careful with the football.
2) Patrick Mahomes wants to preserve his attacking nature — the essence of who he is.
3) The Chiefs’ defense is among the very worst in football through four games.
So, what weighs heaviest?
Situation.
Mahomes won’t say it out loud, so allow us: The Chiefs’ defense is demanding he take some chances, even if only in specific situations. Against the Eagles, Mahomes had one interception deflect off of a receiver’s shoulder pads. But the remaining three this season, all on ill-advised throws, follow a pattern.
Third down. Running to escape pressure.
Basically, he determined in that moment that throwing a football up for grabs was a better option that succumbing to a punt.
He’ll tell you he needs to eliminate those decisions — that’s part of this entire maturation process. But there’s no denying the calculus is different when Mahomes’ defense is allowing 31.3 points per game.
The chances he’s taken in those situations tell the story.
“It’s something I definitely have to cut down on, especially those interceptions that are around the middle of the field,” Mahomes said. “I have taken chances of throwing it deep sometimes and getting those interceptions on third and long that kind of, in turn, is a punt. But whenever you throw interceptions around the middle of the field, that usually puts the defense in bad situations. So that’s definitely something I need to work on as the season goes on.”
Not all interceptions are created equally. The Chiefs’ defense is allowing 6.9 yards per play, worst in the NFL. If Mahomes wants go against the grain and try to squeeze some passes into tight windows, he’s going to go for it. The collection of interceptions he’s thrown this year is not a crisis — other statistics brighten the fuller picture.
Mahomes takes calculated risks. When you see him do something unusual in camp in St. Joseph, just keep in mind that it took years before he actually had the guts to try that left-handed or no-look pass in a game.
Late in this year’s camp, for example, after the players had met at midfield to signal the end of another day’s work, Mahomes took a football and threw it to Edwards-Helaire for a touchdown.
Oh, and one important element we left out.
He threw it behind his back.