Why this was Patrick Mahomes’ most important offseason chore ahead of Chiefs opener
The Patrick Mahomes offseason itinerary has emerged piece by piece, some of it purposefully with social media posts and the like, and some of it requiring a little more effort to uncover.
If you’re a regular here at The Kansas City Star, you’re well aware that Mahomes sliced his summer into separate locations and reserved the biggest piece for his native Texas. There, he met with a new batch of wide receivers, a setup allowed and then encouraged by the Chiefs coaching staff.
At the conclusion of training camp, I mentioned that Mahomes’ individual workouts have produced some of his personal best results in terms of movements, lifts and other measurables.
And all of that is great. All of it will matter as the Chiefs open their season Sunday in Arizona.
But a more concealed offseason project will play a bigger factor than anything we’ve previously discussed. We’re moving on to the less flashy work now.
This is about his progressions — his expertise not to make a throw but to choose the right throw to make, given what a defense is presenting.
Before I go any farther, let’s acknowledge this will probably come off as hypercritical. But striving for perfection can be the difference between a Super Bowl appearance and a Super Bowl win, the difference between one terrific half of football in an AFC Championship Game and the ability to adjust within a game keep it rolling for two halves.
“That’s something,” Mahomes told The Star, “that I have to continue to get better at.”
In the offseason, Mahomes gathers motivation from the fear of falling behind — the fear that if he takes a few days off, that’s time someone else out there will be working. He builds strengths. He fine-tunes them. That’s part of what makes him great.
The progressions fall into a different category. It’s not as though it’s a blunt weakness, but there’s more room for improvement with his reads than something like his throwing motion or accuracy.
An interesting twist is the product of his summer work will reveal itself early — as in likely the season opener Sunday. The Cardinals tend to mix up their coverages as well as any defense in football. That highlights the need for quarterbacks to work through their progressions.
“This team is specifically kind of a junk-ball team — they’ll throw everything at you,” tight end Travis Kelce said. “It’s understanding that you have the whole gamut of coverages that can get thrown at (you).”
It’s important to remember that Mahomes went through some things last year, and I’m referencing his mind more than his body. For years, the Chiefs had successfully taken the top off a defense, most notably because of the speed of receiver Tyreek Hill.
Then, in 2021, defense after defense effectively slammed the top shut. They backed their safeties — and sometimes cornerbacks too — deeper into the secondary, forcing Mahomes to throw to only certain parts of the field. It took time to get used to, and then it was almost as though he got too used to it.
“There’s sometimes I would go through my progressions too fast,” Mahomes told The Star. “I know what coverage it is, and kind of eliminate stuff.”
And, while he eliminated one receiver from his options too early, he stuck on another too long, because, as he put it, “He’s supposed to be open.”
“So that’s something I looked at (from) last year,” he said. “There’s a couple of plays where, just because I knew the coverage, I eliminated it before the snap instead of just giving it its chance. I think that’s something that I want to make sure I get back to —giving guys chances but still getting through the reads on time.”
This is, in a nutshell, the concept of a quarterback’s progressions. Moving on from a covered receiver just after the snap and finding the next option. Maybe it’s the third or fourth option.
A year ago, as Mahomes dropped back into pockets, coverages became predictable. Monotonous, almost. The Chiefs so rarely saw schemes that didn’t include some sort of deep shell.
Which returns us to the present. They enter Sunday’s season opener with a much different look inside the wide receiver room — gone is Tyreek Hill; here are Marquez Valdes-Scantling, JuJu Smith-Schuster and Skyy Moore.
As you might be wondering how that will change the Chiefs offense, they’re wondering how it might change an opposing defense.
“Are they gonna do the shell stuff that we saw most of the year? Are they gonna do what the Bengals did against us in the AFC Championship Game? Are they gonna go back to going with defenses they feel the most confident with?” Mahomes wondered aloud. “I’m excited for that. But we have answers for it.”
Those are essentially the questions that have hovered over the offseason. Have the Chiefs done enough to draw opposing defenses out of the shells? Or at least enough to be more slightly effective against them?
We’ve been looking at the change in personnel as an answer.
It’s one of them.
The more important one is the progressions. As defenses want to take control of what Mahomes can do, his reads are an opportunity to seize that control back.
And, man, what an intriguing test right out of the gate. The Cardinals had the seventh-best pass defense in the NFL a year ago, but most relevant is their mixture of defenses.
That only underscores the offseason work. We’re going to have a pretty good idea of whether Mahomes has found a better habit immediately, and how quickly he can put it into practice.
“I think we have answers for both of them now,” Mahomes said. “I think last year was a learning experience for us.”
If you’re in the dark about what defense is called, and there will plenty of those times Sunday, the receiver on which you locked your eyes pre-snap might be blanketed post-snap. That tight end you expected to see double coverage might be the best opening.
What do you rely on?
Your progressions.
This story was originally published September 11, 2022 at 5:00 AM.