Patrick Mahomes had a day in the Chiefs’ win over Bears. But the important part is why
Some three and a half hours before kickoff Sunday, I pulled into the parking lot at Arrowhead Stadium and wondered something to myself:
What can we possibly learn about the Chiefs today?
The Bears are a terrible football team, their offense and defense sharing equal blame. The Chiefs are a not-so-terrible football team. And thus ...
If the Chiefs win, say, 31-10, why would it mean much of anything?
The pre-game hypothetical was off by one digit.
But one takeaway too.
The Chiefs smashed the Bears 41-10 in a pretty ho, hum game — at least if we’re talking about what unfolded on the field, not in the stadium’s suites — but with the exception of a key development.
In columns on preseason football games, it feels necessary to remind you all that, yes, I know it’s just preseason. Well, it feels appropriate to do the same here: Yes, we’re talking about a game against a bad Bears team that could line up the No. 1 pick in back-to-back years, a dynasty of ineptitude.
However.
I’m intrigued by the way the Chiefs beat the Bears as much as how badly they beat them. And it has me wondering if it’s the start of the end to their early-season offensive frustrations, or whether it’s just a blip. Either way, it’s at least notable.
The Bears did their homework on a Chiefs offense that had uncharacteristically stumbled. They saw Kansas City’s struggles against zone defense and then they basically dared Patrick Mahomes and his receivers to prove they were capable of adjusting.
Apparently they are. And that’s the part that mattered most in the midst of what turned into a glorified second bye week.
The Bears overloaded their defensive playbook with zone calls early in the game, and we saw a response that Mahomes has been delivering for five years but not the past two games. He picked them apart.
Two of the Chiefs’ five longest gains came on consecutive plays in the first quarter. Both were against zone. Both found wide-open receivers. Those three sentences hadn’t been packaged together in any of the first eight quarters of the season.
But the first eight minutes Sunday? To open the sequence, Marquez Valdes-Scantling ran a go-route along the right seam. He took coverage along with him, and then Travis Kelce ran to the same spot underneath. One guy was asked to guard two receivers. That reception went for 24 yards.
One play later, Skyy Moore ran a dig route and couldn’t help but notice the secondary was in a zone. Immediately, he stopped his route in the opening, and the ball arrived at his chest. That went for 21 more.
The Chiefs made something look easy that they’ve been making look too difficult. We could spend another few hundred words providing more examples. Thing is, though, the Bears tried to throw a couple of change-ups. Or maybe it’s more like bringing in a new arm to the bullpen.
The Bears’ initial defensive blueprint required the Chiefs to make adjustments when allotted a week to game plan.
Then they asked the Chiefs to shift on the fly.
Did that, too.
The game was out of hand by the time the second half arrived, but nonetheless, there came a key play on the Chiefs’ first possession, at least as much as there can be a key play in a 31-point game. On third down, the Bears tried to mimic the zone looks they had shown frequently, but they broke into man coverage after the snap.
Mahomes found Valdes-Scantling across the middle, and before being offered a replay, you were probably wondering, How did he get so open?
He won against man coverage. That simple. The play went for 37 yards, the Chiefs’ longest gain of the day.
The total picture: A pass game that appeared early this year disjointed did not simply find one answer. It had everything working. Mahomes finished 24 of 33 for 272 yards and three touchdowns.
“It feels good to get the whole offense going,” Mahomes said. “The first two weeks, we’ve been out of rhythm. ... It was a step in the right direction.”
Which is nearly the extent of what we know. And this: The Chiefs haven’t seen the last of zone-heavy schemes — there will be teams dubious that the Bears struggling to slow down the Chiefs is an indication that they need to shift their own game plans. So be it. They might be right.
But the Chiefs just needed something positive offensively, and the best sign is how they achieved it. The maturation was not limited to the scoreline. It’s in the details.
Moore, in particular, showed a couple of glimpses of it a week earlier in Jacksonville, and it carried over another week. Rashee Rice came within a foot of scoring a touchdown after he found the crease in a zone defense over the middle. And then he repeated the same route and caught another ball. Rice had his best game as a pro, and it came on the back side of mental improvements more than physical traits.
So, sure, the offense took a step in the right direction, as Mahomes termed it. But that’s because a few individuals did so first.
In diagnosing the offensive problems over the past couple of weeks, we’ve too noted that for better or for worse, the solution for the inexperience at wide receiver would be time.
The question is no longer whether the Chiefs can adjust to the new rage of defensive schemes against them but whether they can do it against the league’s best competition.
A trip to New York — the Jets’ defense isn’t dependent on the quarterback — should suggest more.
This story was originally published September 24, 2023 at 9:33 PM.