Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes was forced to play a certain way against the Chargers that KC would rather he not play
It doesn't always have to be pretty in the NFL. A win is a win, and the Kansas City Chiefs have been living and dying by that mantra this season. 10 of their 12 wins have been decided by one score, which is the most since the Oilers back in 1978, or something like that. […]
It doesn't always have to be pretty in the NFL. A win is a win, and the Kansas City Chiefs have been living and dying by that mantra this season. 10 of their 12 wins have been decided by one score, which is the most since the Oilers back in 1978, or something like that. It's been a while, nonetheless.
While the entire NFL world, fans, and media, are joking about the Chiefs being the luckiest team ever, the football gods being on their sides, or the league being rigged, the Chiefs are finding different ways to win over and over again. This time, it was through Mahomes being forced to play a way he hasn't played in a long time, and that's a quick game, the whole game.
Sure, you may say that he's played a quick game a lot this season because of the offensive line. But this game was much different. In fact, Mahomes had the least amount of time to throw this entire season outside of Week 2. And this time, he was pretty efficient when throwing underneath.
Patrick Mahomes completed 24 of his 37 passes for 210 yards and a touchdown, averaging 2.62 seconds per throw, his quickest average time to throw since Week 2. Mahomes completed 17 of 19 pass attempts in under 2.5 seconds for 124 yards and a touchdown compared to 7 of 18 for 86 yards on dropbacks over 2.5 seconds. Mahomes’ quick time to throw coincided with shorter passes, with 78.4% of his attempts coming under 10 air yards, his highest rate of the season. Mahomes completed 21 of his 29 underneath throws for 158 yards and a TD, but just 3 of his 7 attempts over 10 air yards for 52 yards. – Next Gen Stats, NFL Pro
While it worked, this time, the Chiefs would rather they didn't have to play that way on offense. They want Mahomes to have time, as much time as possible. The more time he has to throw the ball, the more time long developing routes have to develop, which equals more deep play possibilities.
This was efficient, for this game. But this won't always be efficient. The offensive line has to give Mahomes more time to throw the ball, and if they can't do that, they have to at least stop allowing him to get hit so much.
The Chiefs play the Cleveland Browns next, and then the Houston Texans. Their remaining schedule isn't easy by any means, but they still have time before the postseason to fix some of these issues.
