What Mahomes aims to improve in season’s 2nd half — and why there’s more to it
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Mahomes shows improved efficiency year over year despite Chiefs' 5-4 start.
- He seeks steadier progression reads; pressure and protection remain chief concerns.
- Offense must improve drive finishes and line play to reduce sacks and chaos.
Through nine games in 2024, the Kansas City Chiefs were undefeated. A year later, at the same juncture, they stand at 5-4 — but rest assured, that has little to do with the play of their quarterback.
Patrick Mahomes’ completion percentage is down about five points (64.6%), but he’s thrown for 141 more yards, five more touchdowns and four fewer interceptions this year. His passer rating is eight points higher, at 98.2.
Year over year, Mahomes has elevated his play — so much so that even with the Chiefs just a game above .500, he still ranks third in the NFL MVP odds at most sportsbooks.
But don’t tell him that, as he has one specific area of improvement in mind.
“I think just staying true to the progressions sometimes as the games go on,” he said Wednesday. “If I look back, especially at the Bills game in general, I started off pretty well going through my progressions, but as the game went on, getting away from that.
“Try to be better at that and then try and settle myself down in some of those moments, but we did a lot of good things. It’s just about being more consistent on a week-to-week basis.”
The irony? Mahomes has actually been way better at working through progressions this year than last, as Star columnist Sam McDowell pointed out a couple weeks back. In fact, he’s been better than anyone else in the league, including Matt Stafford and Drake Maye — the duo that stands ahead of him in those current MVP odds.
When asked about Mahomes’ self-critique, Chiefs offensive coordinator Matt Nagy properly redirected the focus to the offense as a whole.
“To me, when you look at it from a bigger picture — not so much individual — the thing that stuck out, and we talked about it as a team and as an offense, is we started off that game (against Buffalo) with a three-and-out,” Nagy said Thursday. “And then we started off the third quarter and went three-and-out.
“We were not efficient at the end of the half with getting a touchdown — we got a field goal from the 1-yard line, and they stopped us on fourth down. The things we’d been good at most of the year, we struggled with.”
Mahomes’ apparent recency bias is likely a direct result of his time under duress against the Bills in Week 9.
He has been kept clean on 68.4% of his dropbacks this season, per Pro Football Focus. Against the Bills, that number dipped to 53.8%, meaning he faced pressure on nearly half his attempts.
No quarterback is capable of working through progressions under that level of duress. And that has to be concerning as the Chiefs come out of the bye to face a Denver defense with an NFL-leading pressure rate (42.9%), nearly five points higher than sixth-ranked Buffalo (38.0%), per NextGen Stats.
The Broncos also pace the league with 46 sacks, including a team-leading 9.5 from pass rusher Nik Bonitto. His linemates Zach Allen and Jonathon Cooper also rank among the league’s top 15 in QB pressures.
“(Bonitto’s) someone that can really get after the quarterback,” Mahomes said. “He’s smart; he does a lot of spying on me as well. He’s a really good football player, and just like the other guys, they have a lot of sacks for a reason.
“They have a lot of guys — Zach Allen inside and Cooper on the other side, they got guys everywhere that can make plays. Just not letting them make a play that completely disrupts the entire game. Just kind of getting the ball out of your hands, trying not to take sacks and then let the game come to you.”
Despite leaving the Bills game early, right tackle Jawaan Taylor is expected to play against Denver. It’s still unclear whether rookie Josh Simmons or veteran Jaylon Moore will start at left tackle for Kansas City.
Regardless of who lines up in front of him, the Chiefs must do a better job of protecting Mahomes. Nagy hinted there’s plan in place.
“There’s ways that we think we want to use,” he said. “I’m not going to get into it schematically, obviously, but we feel like we have a good plan, and we know that. They’ve got good players; we like our offensive linemen. It’s just about two good teams going at it — big division game. That’s what I think everybody wants.”
Mahomes may believe he needs to improve in his progressions, but with all due respect to the best quarterback of his generation, the true area of second-half improvement lies in all those around him.
