‘The magician comes out.’ What makes Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes different in NFL playoffs
Four years ago now, I traveled to Tyler, Texas — near the Piney Woods, as some of the locals call it, but better known in Kansas City as the hometown of Patrick Mahomes.
It was there, I learned, that a nickname traveled with Mahomes to a few of the Texas-sized high school football fields he would visit on Friday nights.
The Whirling Dervish.
The timing couldn’t have been more appropriate, because just a couple of days earlier — four years ago Friday — Mahomes had tight-roped a sideline scramble into Kansas City lore.
You remember it, right? The Chiefs trailed the Titans by three in an AFC Championship Game, just 23 seconds left on the first-half clock, when Mahomes dropped in the pocket and found no one open.
He headed for the far sideline, and still four yards shy of the line of scrimmage, put a move on Rashaan Evans that must still haunt him to this day. A couple other defenders greeted him at the 5, but Mahomes would reach the end zone, a touchdown run so remarkable that years later it’s been nearly forgotten he almost fumbled at the goal line.
“That’s one of my favorite plays of all time,” Mahomes said this week, “because it went from like a really good play to almost a terrible play because I almost fumbled, and then back to a great play again.
“I was very tired, so I couldn’t even celebrate.”
Strolling through the Chiefs’ locker room this week, there are a couple of other stories about that play, ones of which Mahomes probably isn’t even aware, that better describe its impact than any scoreboard could.
Turns out, offensive lineman Trey Smith, then a college kid, watched the game as a Titans fan from his home state of Tennessee. “I was upset. They had him. They had him. Then, what the heck?”
Turns out, defensive lineman Matt Dickerson stood on the sideline as a Titans player, and he recalled thinking, “That hurts, but I have to admit it’s a pretty cool play.”
What it felt like we knew then, in that moment: Mahomes had altered a game that would put the Chiefs on the verge of reaching their first Super Bowl in a half-century.
How it fits now: The manner in which they’d reach a few more.
Years later, that still stands as one of Mahomes’ favorite plays from a list exhausted with options, but it actually began a trend of them. Or at least a trend like them.
Scramble plays.
We talk plenty in this space about the arm. About the throws.
But on the four-year anniversary of that Titans run? It’s about another differentiator. The legs. The rushes.
You could analyze his escapability, his make-something-from-nothing ability, at almost any time, but this is the time in which Mahomes has been most effective.
The postseason.
As his longtime teammate, lineman Austin Reiter, now on the practice squad, put it: “The magician comes out. When it comes to these playoff games, and it’s all on the line, he’s just in overdrive. He won’t take no for an answer.”
There’s the statistical support, and it might be a bit of a surprise. Mahomes has rushed for more yardage than any other quarterback over the last four postseasons. That’s not the surprise because, hey, he’s played more games, right?
Well, he’s also the highest-graded runner in three of those four postseasons, an analysis in which his sample size offers no advantage. And I’ll remind that Lamar Jackson, Jalen Hurts and this weekend’s opponent, Josh Allen, have been parts of those postseasons. Mahomes outperforms them all.
There’s the anecdotal support too. When we think back over his best playoff moments, the run plays have to climb the list. It’s not just that Titans play.
The most impactful Chiefs offensive snap in last year’s Super Bowl was a scramble, not a throw — when Mahomes gutted the middle of the Eagles’ defense in the final three minutes. That rush increased the Chiefs’ chances to win by 15%, per Ben Baldwin’s model. And Mahomes did it on a bum ankle.
After that game, walking down a hallway with Mahomes, I’d asked him if he felt the pain in his ankle in each stride — or if the adrenaline had just taken over.
“Hurt like hell,” he said, and I couldn’t help but think that his right arm was perfectly healthy.
Which is what this all ultimately suggests. The Mahomes competitive streak, the one everyone back in Tyler will mention if you allow them a platform, fires sharpest in the playoffs.
It’s calculated risk when he takes off late in last year’s AFC Championship Game against Cincinnati on that same high ankle sprain to set up the game-winning field goal. Or when he bypasses the opportunity to slide against the Dolphins last week, instead dipping his head to absorb a hit that would literally crack his helmet.
“When it gets to the playoffs,” Mahomes said, “sometimes you have to risk it in order to try to win the game for your teammates.”
That’s why it’s most relevant now. The whole storyline is a bit ironic this week, because Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen’s running ability has generated plenty of coverage outside Chiefs headquarters — and even more conversation inside it.
Defensive tackle Chris Jones commented at how difficult Allen is to bring down. And defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo, when asked the most simple of questions about what stood out about Allen, responded quickly.
“When you put that tape on and he’s running, the way he makes people miss at 6-5 or whatever he is, to me it’s amazing,” Spagnuolo said. “I don’t know where you’ve ever seen that.”
It’s a legitimate threat that’s regarded as a legitimate threat.
With Mahomes? It’s closer to an afterthought.
It shouldn’t be. Especially not this time of year.
The Chiefs, not the Bills, actually have the toughest guy to bring down because first you have to track him down. And you don’t know when you’ll need to.
That’s certainly not to downplay the impact Allen’s legs could have Sunday. The Bills design quarterback runs, and it’s something for which the Chiefs defense is going to have to account.
Mahomes is more of a freestyle. He’s turning some of the worst of plays into some of the best. He has joked plenty of times that he might have not have the quickest 40-yard dash time, but he just so happens to be about one step quicker than whoever is chasing him. You have to run scared, he says, simplifying it.
On the other end?
“You can try to emulate it as much as you can, and you can try to rep it as much as you can,” said Dickerson, remembering facing Mahomes as an opposing player. “But it’s just difficult. You get into those moments in the game, and he just takes over.”
“It’s the Patrick Mahomes Effect,” Reiter said. “His ability to extend plays is just unmatched.”
Well, literally.
This story was originally published January 19, 2024 at 10:22 AM.