Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes kept a ‘secret’ about TD to Travis Kelce. Why it’s significant
The football came out of the right hand of Patrick Mahomes in 1.3 seconds, and if it had been 1.4, it almost certainly would have been a tick too late.
That’s all the time he had to take the snap, shuffle backward three steps, plant his right foot and fire his first touchdown of the day in the Chiefs’ 27-20 win at Allegiant Stadium. It’s a split-second decision — OK, a 1.3-second decision — that cemented the best half of football he’s played this season.
Except I’m going to let you in on a little secret: It wasn’t really a split-second. Or even 1.3 seconds.
Mahomes actually made that decision ages ago — days ago — back when he was watching film of the Raiders and looking for tendencies in their defense ahead of Sunday’s game.
“Without giving away all our secrets,” Mahomes said, when I asked him about the read that led to that touchdown, “we knew the coverage they were going to play.”
That coverage: zone. It had some wrinkles, sure, but its foundation dropped seven defenders into a zone defense.
Tight end Travis Kelce ran a slant across the middle on the play, slowed to set up shop just past the goal line and turned to see Mahomes had already whipped a pass his way. The line-drive throw barely beat linebacker Divine Deablo’s out-stretched arm.
At last, Kelce had his first touchdown catch of the season.
There’s something intriguing about that play that would have been hardly worth mentioning in any other year. Literally, in any other year these two were on the throwing and receiving end of that exact touchdown, we would’ve considered it mundane. Maybe worth a sentence or two.
But now? It’s the story.
A day in Las Vegas provided some prominent firsts — the first time the Chiefs have been 7-0 under Patrick Mahomes, Kelce’s long-awaited first score in 2024, Mahomes becoming the first quarterback in NFL history to reach 30,000 career passing yards in just 103 games.
But Sunday in Sin City isn’t about anything new.
It’s about the old.
The Chiefs looked a lot like, well, they used to look — the team that got whatever it wanted offensively. The team with a dominant passing game. The team that you just couldn’t stop on third downs. And on Sunday, just like it used to be, that is the effect of a familiar cause.
Kelce.
Against the zones.
We’ve been talking for years about this trend — how the Chiefs tight end and quarterback have the sort of connection that’s hard to teach. It’s instinctual, two players identifying the same space against zone defenses without the benefit of in-the-moment communication.
Their trust triggers frustration among those tasked with defending them. It’s why Chiefs safety Justin Reid, once among those opponents, used one phrase to describe the feeling of that task: “What the (bleep)?”
But this year, gone.
Like it never existed.
In every other season of the Kelce-Mahomes connection, Mahomes had totaled at least a 98.3 passer rating when targeting Kelce against zone defenses, per data available on PFF.
Those aren’t touchdown-inflated numbers, either. Kelce had at least 48 catches and 642 yards just against zone coverages in every season that Mahomes has been his quarterback.
You make Hall of Fame careers out of those numbers. Or, you know, a few Super Bowls out of them.
Their connection is not your imagination.
But in 2024, it’s been more like a memory.
In the six games this season prior to Sunday in Las Vegas, Kelce had caught 19 passes for 117 yards (just 19.5 yards per game) versus zone. His numbers have taken a dive overall, but that’s at the root of why. Mahomes’ passer rating when targeting him in those looks: 51.6.
On Sunday, the Chiefs’ offense was back in large part because that was back.
Mahomes not only found Kelce for 10 receptions, 90 yards and the touchdown, but he did it the old-fashioned way. The, uh, “What the (bleep)?” way.
They busted zone coverages.
Kelce totaled 79 yards against the Raiders’ various zone looks, per Next Gen Stats, and I’ll save you the math on that: That represented 68% of his total in the initial six weeks.
It’s the most encouraging development in a game that provided more than a few of them.
The Chiefs were terrific on third downs, converting 12 of 16 attempts. One of their misses, in the official scorebook, came on the final snap of the game. The final snap, mind you, was a kneel-down.
So, yeah, they were 12 of 15 before that. Two other misses came because Xavier Worthy dropped two catchable passes that hit his hands, and that’s a problem that needs to improve.
Mahomes was also terrific making something happen while on the move — both designed throws on the run and those he had to make on the fly. There’s a relation between that fact and their third-down success.
He was the playmaker again when he needed to be.
But he had the guy on the other end making the plays, too.
With those third-down numbers, consider this: Kelce caught three passes on third downs against the Raiders, and all three of them — gains of 5, 16 and 11 yards — moved the chains. He had converted just seven third-down receptions into first downs in the initial six weeks of the season.
At long last, the Chiefs’ offense looked comfortable again. (Just avert your eyes from the third quarter.) The days of saying the Chiefs were undefeated without seeing the best of Mahomes and Kelce are gone.
We’ve seen it in 2024.
Just like the old days.
This story was originally published October 28, 2024 at 6:00 AM.