Chiefs: What Patrick Mahomes Needs to Fix

Patrick Lavon Mahomes II is not perfect. Kansas City Chiefs fans get a little carried away at times when it comes to their franchise QB, who is now also the face of the National Football League, as well as the face on multiple Madden covers. However, if you’re at all like me, then watching the Chiefs games over the past few seasons has been a mixed bag of emotions. Far too many games are in doubt… far too late in those games.

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Patrick Mahomes is not the only one to blame for his precocious predicament. If you give candy to a baby, you set them up for a life of the Sugar Blues. In this metaphor, it’s Andy Reid with the big bag of sweets… or more aptly put, he’s handing over the keys to his long ball race car offense, to a teenager who only knows how to drive waaay over the speed limit. On top of that, when Reid also gives that same teenager a pit crew of Tyreek Hill and Travis Kelce, then you can only expect one result… and a handful of speed bumps, parking tickets and endless collisions. Enough collisions to get a knee cap jammed out of joint and a case of turf toe, requiring surgery.

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After spending 6 decades without drafting a true franchise QB to speak of, like many Chiefs fans, I’m thinking, these are good problems to have. However, I assure you, no one in K.C. — including moi — wants to see an early career exit like QB Andrew Luck had in Indy. Maybe that’s a part of the motivation of the Chiefs this offseason, to bring in every OL resource they could possibly find: by trade, by barter, by free agency, by drafting, by hook, or by crook.

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So, what are these holes in Mahomes bucket that need patching? To begin with, he needs to remain committed to being himself. While I lived a life as a teacher assuring my young students, “You can be anything you want to be,” the reality is, there are limitations and I don’t want to hear Mahomes saying things like, “Did I look like Lamar?”

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I just want Mahomes to be Mahomes. Period. Part of the problem is, we’re dealing with a world class athlete here and like any prima donna (yes, I said it), he doesn’t want to be told what his limitations are. So, he says things like: “I have to learn to be more efficient” this offseason.

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Charles Goldman at ChiefsWire makes a good point about how Mahomes is responding to the SB LV loss:

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“… the Chiefs didn’t do a great job of adjusting their plan given those injuries to the offensive line. Mahomes kept trying to push the ball down the field despite having near-instantaneous pressure. It makes plenty of sense within that context why Mahomes would be working on finding ways to become more efficient.”

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All moves this offseason appear to support the idea that the Chiefs are focusing on hitting more wideouts who are running underneath routes. Bolstering the OL to give PMII more time in the pocket is one move which supports that idea. Or the drafting of WR Cornell Powell — as Ryne Nutt, the Chiefs Director of player personnel said of Powell, “He’s going to be like our post-up receiver.” Or the addition of Noah Gray, is another such move.

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One of those skills Mahomes needs to work on is operating from “within” the pocket, instead of “behind” the pocket. You may be wondering, what the H is the difference? Mahomes likes to retreat to 10 or 13 yards deep with the idea that he’s waiting for one of his speedier WRs to come open deep. If one of his offseason goals is to take what the defense will give him, and hit some of his WRs who are running those underneath routes, he’ll have to learn to be a true pocket passer. While I’m hopeful that Mahomes can become that guy, I also see that it may be like asking a leopard to change his spots.

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One of the most interesting aspects of this coming season has to be whether or not all the work the Chiefs are doing to “fix” their offensive line is actually going to work. If your QB only sees his offensive linemen as orange road cones for defensive linemen to maneuver around, then this OL may be no better off than any of the previous lines Mahomes has played behind.

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Look at it this way, the reasons the 2003 Kansas City Chiefs offense was so good, had a lot to do with: 1) they had a RB in Priest Holmes who followed his blockers, and even slowed down for them at times, and 2) the Chiefs had a pure “in the pocket” passer in Trent Green (who has been highly under-appreciated, IMNSHO).

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So much of this is about mental makeup, and habits. It’s hard to change the way you do things. If Mahomes has been a QB like Fran Tarkenton, he’s likely to remain a QB like Fran Tarkenton. I’m not saying Patrick Mahomes is a mentally challenged athlete. In fact, the reason I remain hopeful, is that Mahomes is great at learning and adapting. Sportspsych.org has a list of 9 mental skills that successful athletes share and Mahomes appears to check off most all of the boxes:

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Although “setting high, realistic goals” is questionable, we’ll have to wait-n-see if K.C goes 20-and-0 this year, then I’ll have to eat my words if so. While that checklist is good news, Mahomes still has work to do on making his game better. Hard to imagine, I know, because last year the Chiefs offense produced 414.7 yards per game which was nearly 21 points higher than the next best team: the Green Bay Packers. They produced 393.8 YPG, so, you can see, if Mahomes is able to continue to improve, he can help these Chiefs create records that will last a lifetime. FYI, the 414.7 YPG is still 53 yards per game behind the all time leading team, the 2011 New Orleans Saints, 467 YPG.

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When the 2021 seasons starts, right off the bat, one of the ways we’ll be able to tell if Mahomes has made the necessary changes he needs to make this season, is if we see him stepping up in to the pocket more, instead of taking all those deep drops, like we’re used to seeing him take. Brett Kollman says this on the subject:

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So, what does it take for a QB to step up into the pocket? Confidence, right? It can’t be that hard, right? Well, hold on a minute. If the QB doesn’t — and hasn’t — had an OL in front of him who he’s consistently been able to rely upon, to give him the space and time to do his work, then trust breaks down. It’s a crazy circle game at that point and some of it is subconscious: I don’t trust you… because your’e not trustworthy. Confidence is not just a word game, it’s a feeling of assurance. Yikers!

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Well, that’s going to take time and reprogramming with this incredible athlete — and human — and brain — which the Chiefs have running their offense. Seems to me, that’s gonna take more than time, it takes repeated positive experiences on Mahomes part, no matter how many times, or how loudly, Orlando Brown says: “No one is going to touch my quarterback.”

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Nice sentiment but, the proof is in the pudding.

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Mahomes is also going to have to be more intentional this year. Learning to move methodically down the field is going to have to be the Chiefs new offensive tune, no, theme song. The problem may be that, it’s hard to back off from drinking the Kool-aid, when Kool-aid is all you’ve known. Changing habits isn’t easy. If the Chiefs can make the necessary changes to their offense, while maintaining the ability to “occasionally” go down field (the threat of going deep, is at least worth as much as, repeatedly attempting to go deep), it could make the SB LV loss worth the price paid. While the Chiefs players are all saying the right things, “That they’re using the SB loss to motivate them” it may not be that easy to make the biggest changes of all. The Chiefs have to decide and commit to a new decision: do they want to be the fastest car in the world?…

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[That’s a Devel Sixteen and no, I didn’t speed it up,

that’s the actual speed of the car (0-to-60 in 1.8 seconds).

Kinda reminds you of Tyreek Hill, huh?]

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Or… do they want to be the most dependable car in the world (and still be fast)?…

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That’s an Audi A5, which does 0-to-60 in 3.7 seconds.

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A big part of the change that needs to be made to the Chiefs offense this offseason has to do with Andy Reid’s approach. If he doesn’t call more plays that are focused on those “post-up, underneath, routes,” it’s going to make Mahomes transition much more difficult. Maybe even impossible. So, some of this is based on the “reads” Mahomes makes, but some of it is based on play design. Reid may have given in to Mahomes and Hill and Hardman’s desire to go long in their Super Bowl loss. One thing is for certain, Reid never made any adjustments and that was a fatal flaw from a game plan perspective.

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Making improvements in Patrick Mahomes game is part of a natural progression that any QB in the NFL would want to achieve in any offseason, but in this one, for these Chiefs, for this quarterback, it’s a completely different equation. Joe Montana is still the best QB I’ve ever seen running a West Coast style offense, which is what Andy Reid has continually concocted and contorted his offensive scheme from. That West Coast offense, is based a lot on timing routes and throws, but ever since Mahomes was inserted at QB, those kinds of timing routes have become increasingly tertiary to Mahomes primary ability to improvise. While Mahomes is perhaps the best QB I’ve ever seen when a play breaks down, you must question what some of those plays were originally designed to achieve? Consequently, part of the changes Mahomes is going to need to work on, is staying dedicated to the play, as called.

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While Andy Reid has the most — “I’ll just roll with whatever baby” — attitude I’ve ever seen in a head coach, Mahomes will need to explore what Reid’s initial intention was on any given play. I’m sure Reid has altered his way of doing business more than Mahomes has to his, so now, it’s Mahomes turn to bend his will — and game — to Andy’s. It’s gonna be one heck of a season watching what actually evolves.

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Laddie Morse — ArrowheadOne

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