NFL Network: Chiefs tinkering with offense because opponents have ‘book on Mahomes’
The Chiefs’ offensive output dropped last year as the team ranked fifth in the NFL, averaging 28.2 points per game.
Although they averaged 39 points per playoff game en route to winning Super Bowl LIV, the Chiefs are toying with new offensive plays. So says James Palmer of the NFL Network.
Palmer said opposing teams have a “book” on Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes and that is why Kansas City’s scoring offense didn’t match its 2018 level when it was No. 1 in the NFL.
“With all the continuity they have, with all the coaches coming back, with pretty much the entire offense coming back, they have been extremely aggressive about how they want to adapt and evolve moving forward,” Palmer said Monday. “They scored 114 fewer points last year than they did two years ago when Patrick Mahomes won MVP. That’s for a couple of reasons. One, Mahomes played a lot of the season hurt, Tyreek Hill was hurt, they had injuries on the offensive line, but also because teams were taking away what they do best.
“There was a book now on Mahomes and they had to adjust on the fly. A lot of coverages were coming at him, if you talk to people in Kansas City, that teams just didn’t do. They were playing uncharacteristic football against Mahomes, stuff they didn’t put on film and then did it against Mahomes. Playing deeper coverage. He said he scrambled around too much trying to make the big plays when he could have taken the shorter throw underneath, that’s one of the adjustments he wants to make.”
Palmer said the Chiefs are trying to find ways to make their adjustments despite the social-distancing requirements during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mahomes and the coaching staff have been sharing ideas.
“They’ve been sending things I’m told to Mahomes privately,” Palmer said. “Andy Reid, Eric Bieniemy, Mike Kafka, the quarterbacks coach, all of them with different ideas, sending them to Mahomes this whole offseason, saying, ‘What if we did this off of this’ (and) ‘what if we changed that’ and found different ways to combat the way these defense are playing them. They’ve been very aggressive.”
Here is the clip from the NFL Network:
This story was originally published June 30, 2020 at 11:35 AM.
