Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes was prepared for the Raiders’ aggressiveness, and it changed the game in Week 4
The Las Vegas Raiders have a good team and have taken massive steps. But the Kansas City Chiefs still have Patrick Mahomes, and he showed Rob Leonard what not to do.
If you pull up the box score from the Kansas City Chiefs’ 30-27 win over the Las Vegas Raiders, you’d think quarterback Patrick Mahomes had a poor game. You have to watch what happened on the field and know how the Raiders played to see that Mahomes actually played well.
Sure, a 15/30 passing game for 225 yards and two touchdowns doesn’t look great. It’s not bad, but a 50% completion percentage isn’t good at all. But let’s give the Raiders credit where it’s due. They put Mahomes under a lot of pressure. Vegas took advantage of the Chiefs’ offensive line situation and pressured Mahomes 39% of the time. He was hit eight times and was pressured 13 times, with two sacks. Vegas came in hot. But that backfired at one point.
The Raiders spent this offseason hiring a new staff. Klint Kubiak, the rookie head coach, decided to take defensive line coach Rob Leonard and promote him to defensive coordinator. And so far it’s worked well for them. However, he had a rookie moment on Sunday—he blitzed at the wrong times and was too aggressive.
Raiders DC Rob Leonard made his ‘rookie’ mistake
In the fourth quarter, with three and a half minutes to go, the Chiefs needed a big play on third and 5. Leonard had his team in cover zero and sent a blitz Mahomes’ way, and Mahomes threw a deep ball to Tyquan Thornton for 55 yards. This was a game-changing play.
“Yeah, again, we were going to be aggressive for the game, and sometimes you win those situations, sometimes they go the other way,” Kubiak said after the game. “But that’s part of being a competitor and doing what you feel is right in the moment.”
Mahomes is known for doing a few things. He’s won three Super Bowls and has had some pretty incredible comeback wins. No lead is safe when Mahomes is on the field. But one of the other things he’s known for is how he is vs. the blitz. He’s torched the Buffalo Bills, Cincinnati Bengals, and Baltimore Ravens in those kinds of situations over the years. He did it there against the rookie defensive coordinator.
Patrick Mahomes is not the guy you want to blitz
Under pressure, Mahomes completed just 2/10 passes for 96 yds while being sacked twice, compared to 13/20 for 129 yards and both touchdowns from a clean pocket. Sure, those numbers aren’t great, but guess what he did when the moment was the biggest against the blitz under pressure? Two completions for 96 yards is as impressive as it gets. With the stakes, at that point of the game, against that team, yeah, Mahomes was ready for it.
“When you kind of get close to that 50-yard line, you have to be alert for cover zero,” Mahomes told reporters after the game. “We talked through every play on the entire script about cover zero, what we’re going to do, and where the answers are.
“We only had one free rusher coming from the furthest place away, and Tyquan [Thornton] knew that if he got cover zero, that middle of the whole field’s open. So then run to a spot, and I threw it up, let him run underneath it. Sucks that he hurt his ankle in that play, but a big play for us to help us go out there and get the win.”
Patrick Mahomes has been among the best when being blitzed in 2026
So far in 2026, Mahomes is 23/32 when being blitzed, per Next Gen Stats. In those situations, he has 314 passing yards, four passing touchdowns, and one interception. Mahomes EPA in those situations is +9.5, good enough for sixth-best in the league. He also has the fourth-best completion percentage over the expected percentage at +9.8%.
In other words, he’s delivering the ball to his guys at a high rate when he’s being blitzed. He’s doing it so much that the plays are resulting in more positive plays than expected. And it’s having a huge impact on the game as a whole. We saw last week that one play in particular completely changed the game. KC won and remains the lone undefeated AFC team.
