Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes in season openers: ‘Players like that go to different places’
With two Super Bowl championships and no year falling short of a conference championship game, Patrick Mahomes knows how to conclude an NFL season.
His opening bids are extraordinary, as well.
Mahomes looks to remain perfect in season-opening games and add to his remarkable statistics when the Chiefs play host to the Detroit Lions on Thursday Night Football.
It’s been five victories in five starts, four by double digits, with 18 touchdown passes and zero interceptions since 2018. The two-time MVP would have five such awards if he played every game like he has in openers.
Chiefs offensive coordinator Matt Nagy, who was overseeing the offense in Mahomes’ 2017 rookie season and returned to Kansas City last year, was recently made aware of the numbers on Mahomes.
He wasn’t surprised.
“With Pat, you look at OTAs, training camp, he’s always locked in” Nagy said. “But you always feel there’s that little tick more of knowing that you’re now in game-week. It becomes a little more real. It’s here.”
After playing one game at the end of his rookie season, Mahomes made his his debut as a full-time starter in the 2018 opener at the Los Angeles Chargers. He threw four touchdown passes, ending the Chiefs’ first possession with a scoring pass to Tyreek Hill on a slant that covered 58 yards.
The Chiefs won that game 38-28. A year later, Mahomes threw all three of his touchdown passes to Sammy Watkins in a season-opening 40-26 victory at the Jacksonville Jaguars.
In 2020, when the Chiefs opened on a Thursday night as the Super Bowl champions, Mahomes tossed three touchdown passes in a 34-20 triumph over the Houston Texans.
The biggest scare came in 2021 when the Cleveland Browns visited. The Chiefs fell behind by nine early in the fourth quarter. But Mahomes threw a 75-yard bomb to Hill for a touchdown and an 8-yard score to Travis Kelce to complete a 33-29 comeback victory.
Last season was Mahomes’ most productive opening game: five touchdown passes in a 44-21 blowout at the Arizona Cardinals. It was Nagy’s first game back as the Chiefs’ coordinator working with Mahomes.
“You feel it in the week of practice, and I was fortunate enough to feel it last year on game day how that is for him,” Nagy said. “Players like that go to different places.
“You know when it’s game week you just feel it ... .It’s different. There are a lot of people like that, but (he) is just different.”
This story was originally published September 5, 2023 at 6:30 AM.