Kansas City Chiefs Laddie Morse

How to Beat Patrick Mahomes

LadnerMorse September 25, 2018 No Comments

 

 

 

How to Beat Patrick Mahomes

 

by Laddie Morse

 

Right now, the Kansas City Chiefs new quarterback, Patrick Mahomes II, seems unbeatable… but… he’s not. You might have a hard time convincing the coaches of the Chargers, Steelers, or the 49ers about that but it’s true. The ascending question around the league is, how to beat Patrick Mahomes, and since you asked, I’ll tell ya.

 

First, take a close look at how Mahomes is using his whole body to move a Safety off in the wrong direction.

 

 

 

 

 

 

While Dan Orlovsky says that with the elite wide receiving weapons the Chiefs have, and Patrick Mahomes skills, this offense is “indefensible.” However, if you examine that play again, it lends clues for how to stop Mahomes from succeeding. The reality is, you only need to stop, one play at a time. Win on one play.

 

Since Orlovsky does a great job of breaking this play down, he also shows us how Mahomes manipulated the DBs and consequently, exactly how to turn the result of that play around. When you play a one-high Safety set up that close to the goal line while everyone else is playing in a zone, you’re asking for trouble.

 

It’s a rare ability that Mahomes has to read the field — post snap — and determine who will be open. However, it’s those reads that can be fooled or made to appear that someone is covered when they are not. Here, Mahomes uses his body and head to turn towards the right side of the field, if the Safety uses that knowledge to jab-step in that direction, then move the opposite way, that play could be stopped. Also, the LB is playing too close to the line of scrimmage at the snap. It’s okay to give up a few yards but not a TD… and that should be the goal here, defensively. So, the DBs need to be doing what the linebackers do all the time: show movement one way, then go the other way.

 

Patrick Mahomes has been compared to Brett Favre and Peyton Manning and several other all time great NFL quarterbacks. The comparison raises issues about the mental side of the game because Mahomes has also been called, “mature beyond his years.” The answer to breaking down a smart QB is to reduce to a minimum, what he can predict or count on. In other words, you must beat a heady QB with heady moves.

 

Below you will find the play Dan Orlovsky outlined. In the first picture is the way the coverage acted and the route Demetrius Harris took for the TD. In the second photo is a solution the 49ers DBs could have applied to keep all receivers covered.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The 49ers R-ILB who gave up on Harris was coming forward to cover the Chiefs RB coming out on a delayed pattern. In photo two, the R-ILB should have dropped deep to follow Harris and their L-ILB should have been assigned to come up to cover the RB. The L-ILB didn’t need to drop to the left side to help cover two WRs because there was already help over the top and that Safety could have dropped more to the middle of the end zone to help with any deeper routes.

 

As Orlovsky says, Reid’s design and Mahomes execution created a wide open Harris… which usually doesn’t happen in the NFL and there’s no reason it should have happened on Sunday if the defensive assignments were laid out more clearly.

 

So, how could the defensive backfield have helped beat Mahomes on this play, besides being given better assignments? The simple answer is: with pre-snap movements and post-snap fakes. If the centerfield Safety had only moved a little towards he left sideline and then jabbed stepped once the ball was hiked, then turned and helped on Harris, that play could have been avoided, defensed.

 

The next way to beat Patrick Mahomes is with an up the middle pass rush that employs outside rushers who drop deeper than normal to help avoid the impromptu rollouts by Mahomes which usually end up a disaster for the defense. So, the object is to, A) get Mahomes uncomfortable in the pocket by using a hard bull rush up the middle, and B) corral Mahomes by using speedy OLBs who take a wider than normal angle so he can’t get lose and create his kind of havoc.

 

If you think back about all the highlights you’ve seen of Patrick Mahomes, about 50% of those are of him rolling out and gunning the ball downfield to a streaking WR.

 

This last way to beat Patrick Mahomes is going to sound ridiculous but it is… to outscore him. In 2016, Mahomes last year at Texas Tech, the scores of some of those games were wonky:

 

  • Kansas State      44
  • Texas Tech         38

 

  • Texas                   45
  • Texas Tech          37

 

  • OKLA St.             45
  • Texas Tech         44

 

  • Arizona St.         68
  • Texas Tech         55

 

  • OKLA                  66
  • Texas Tech         59

 

 

 

Now, outscoring Mahomes may easier said than done in the NFL. However, we haven’t seen how Mahomes reacts yet to playing from behind. When that does happen, it may mean that it’s only matters who has the ball last on that day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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