Patrick Mahomes is both largely overlooked and better positioned for success than ever
If Patrick Mahomes cared enough to notice, he might feel like he’s in the middle of the strangest episode of “This Is Your Life” in history. He remains too young to rent a car, with a career that tracks toward the best to ever play his sport, and in the moment he is largely overlooked beyond Kansas City.
Deshaun Watson, the quarterback Mahomes’ Chiefs will face in a NFL Division Round playoff game at Arrowhead Stadium Sunday, is the one flexing his biceps after an outrageous scramble-and-throw set up an overtime win for the Houston Texans in the Wild Card round last week.
Baltimore’s Lamar Jackson, the quarterback the Chiefs would likely face in a potential AFC Championship Game, is the presumptive new MVP after a dominating season in which he played quarterback in a way the league has rarely, if ever, seen before.
Mahomes is, at least in these relative terms, the AFC’s forgotten quarterback of the moment. Strange timing, too, because he’s supported in a way that he wasn’t last year, and healthy in a way he hasn’t yet been this season.
This is, in other words, setting up for something of a Mahomes victory tour through the AFC. More on that in a second.
Nobody talks about this, but Mahomes was brilliant in 2019. He threw for 4,031 yards, 26 touchdowns and just five interceptions through an ankle that kept spraining, a kneecap that dislocated and a hand injury that limited his grip and distance in one of the season’s most important games. He missed all of two games and most of a third.
If you prorate his 13 full games over a 16-game season, you come up with 4,867 yards. Only Tampa Bay’s Jameis Winston (with 30 interceptions) and Dallas’ Dak Prescott (by 35 yards, with more than twice as many interceptions) threw for more this season.
Using ESPN’s Total Quarterback Rating, two of the five best seasons in the last two years are Mahomes’. Using Football Outsiders’ DYAR, two of the best four are Mahomes’. Mahomes’ two-year average in both metrics is the league’s best.
Mahomes has thrown for 9,128 yards and 76 touchdowns and won 23 times as a starting quarterback these last two seasons.
Here is a complete list of the quarterbacks to match those totals in consecutive seasons:
Peyton Manning, Drew Brees and Dan Marino, none of whom missed any starts.
We’re in the midst of a remarkable thing, then. Everything in the NFL is blown out of proportion. We can’t wait to talk historical significance, or to openly expect superhuman performance.
Yet, with Mahomes, the national discussion is largely missing an obvious possibility.
If Mahomes and the Chiefs had a down year, well, that’s ridiculous. They had the league’s third-best offense. The New England Patriots are apparently considering a reset. If they had the “down year” of the Chiefs’ offense, the Patriots would be on the verge of another Super Bowl.
But even with that context, Mahomes played most of the season with his (metaphorically, but also at least once literally) injured hand tied behind his back.
He made just five starts with his starting offensive line playing together in its entirety, and in one of those he left before halftime. He played just six full games with his starting receivers, and just two with fully healthy linemen and skill-position players.
This is a small sample size, but in those two games the Chiefs scored on nine of 14 possessions (64.3 percent), averaging 3.6 points per drive.
Both of those rates are better than last year, when the Chiefs were historically productive.
This is worth emphasizing: The Chiefs have been even more efficient at full health this year than they were in 2018.
Particularly buoyed by a first-round bye, the Chiefs’ offense is, at the moment and finally, healthy.
You might be able to recite this already, but it’s worth repeating quickly: When the Chiefs played the Texans in Week 6, they were without receiver Sammy Watkins and offensive linemen Eric Fisher and Andrew Wylie. Mahomes re-injured his ankle. Star receiver Tyreek Hill played half the team’s snaps that day, still working his way back from a shoulder injury.
A Chiefs win Sunday would mean a rematch against either the Ravens or Tennessee Titans, and — depending on what happens this weekend, of course — a healthier Chiefs offense than the first time they played either of those opponents.
Mahomes’ raw statistics aren’t what they were a year ago. Some of that can be explained with time missed and some because of the injuries around him.
Other chunks of the statistical dropoff are owing to a much-improved defense — the Chiefs essentially spent each of the last two second halves focused on draining clock, for instance.
But part of it, too, is what defenses have done against the Chiefs. As Reid told fellow Star columnist Vahe Gregorian recently, Mahomes is better this year than last. To illustrate his point Reid, mentioned that on the vast majority of the Chiefs’ snaps in a Dec. 29 game against the Los Angeles Chargers, L.A. had a single safety “playing so deep” over the middle to take away Mahomes’ big plays. One exception: a 47-yard pass to Hill that set up a touchdown.
“If you look at that, they tried one snap of Cover 2,” Reid told Vahe. “And (Mahomes) destroyed it.”
So, think about what we’re looking at here:
An MVP quarterback who has been largely passed over in recent national discussion despite remaining statistically excellent and actually improving in the eyes of his coach. Who spent most of the season working around injuries to himself and those around him, but in two representative games with good health has pushed the Chiefs to be even more efficient than they were in setting records a year ago.
Here’s where we hedge. Nobody can know what this postseason will bring. Could be more injuries, could be a bad bounce, could be anything.
But a year ago, the hype surrounding Mahomes could not be escaped.
And this year, the hype has moved on.
The trick of it is, Mahomes is a better quarterback, better supported and in a small sample size has shown the Chiefs to be more efficient at full strength than they were a year ago.
There is real reason to believe Mahomes will have a bigger impact now than a year ago, when the league couldn’t stop talking about him.
This story was originally published January 9, 2020 at 5:00 AM.