Patrick Mahomes’ supposed ‘down year’ is still giving the Chiefs everything they need

Photo by Michael Owens/Getty Images

The Kansas City Chiefs aren’t explosive—and that’s how they like it.

The Kansas City Chiefs can, and will, keep getting away with it.

After WR Rashee Rice went down with an injury that would sideline him for an extended period of time, I wrote about how the Chiefs’ offense has a razor thin margin for error offensively, and their inability to generate explosives was the biggest reason why I felt unsure about them.

However, I think I’ve come around on this version of both the Chiefs offense and Patrick Mahomes, whose raw numbers don’t tell the whole story. Through seven games, Mahomes has thrown more interceptions than touchdowns (8 INTs to 6 TDs). Those six passing touchdowns are by far the lowest through seven games of his entire career. However, the Chiefs’ offense and Mahomes are have the highest success rate in the NFL at 51.3%. This means over half the time they snap the ball, they’re running a successful play. For context, that would be the sixth highest Success Rate through seven weeks for ANY team since 2018.

They’re still one of the best teams in the league in terms of moving the chains and generating first downs, despite the offense not feeling the same.

So, if Mahomes has more interceptions than touchdowns, and the passing offense has felt so sluggish, how are they still doing this at an incredibly high level?

The evolution of the Chiefs’ offense has been a sight to behold. From the moment Mahomes took over to where the current offense is, there’s been a shift in how the team executes their offense. For one, they obviously aren’t throwing the ball downfield as much. Mahomes’ current Average Throw Depth of 5.1 Yards is easily the lowest of his career, and a stark drop from the 9.8 number he had in 2019. As much as we want this offense to be the fun and gun, explosive offense that we used to know in KC, I think it’s time we let that go. This offense isn’t going to generate as many explosives as they used to, for multiple reasons. The first one being that there just isn’t enough of a rapport between Mahomes and the little downfield targets that are healthy on this team. First round pick Xavier Worthy has played well in spurts, but he and Mahomes still lack the synchronization downfield that Mahomes had with Tyreek Hill.

Against the 49ers, there were opportunities, but either Mahomes missed them:

Or something goes terribly wrong, such as Worthy tripping here and it leads to an interception:

That, combined with just a lack of downfield options, is why this offense hasn’t felt explosive. Mahomes only has five completions of 20 Air Yards or more this season, his lowest mark through seven games since 2020. So, if they’re not explosive downfield, how is this offense still moving the ball and top 15 in Points Per Game? The answer to that is simple: they kill opponents with the most brutally efficient offense in the game.

People point to Mahomes’ aDOT and Air Yards per completion to say he’s checking it down at a higher rate. Well, the answer to that is yes and no. QBs are checking it down far more often, but the way that the KC offense is built, Mahomes and the passing game can feast on numbers and angles. Often, you’ll see Kansas City run a bubble on the backside of run plays, not necessarily an RPO but if Mahomes counts those numbers in the box and they’re more than what they have available to block, he can just flip it out to the screen. This is an example from their win over the Saints. Mahomes sees the box count and just throws it out to the bubble.

This, notably, happens on early downs because of how dynamic the Chiefs’ offense has become. With the way that they can run the ball (11th in EPA per carry on all RB runs, 8th in Positive Play Rate in the same metric), the offense can grind teams down and force them to defend every blade of grass horizontally using misdirection and their improved run game. This is again just reading the box count. Because of the threat of Worthy in the slot on a bubble, the overhang defender goes with him and you get six blockers vs six box defenders. The result is a positive gain for Kareem Hunt.

Where the rubber really meets the road for Mahomes is on late downs. While the Chiefs ask him to be more of a distributor on early downs, on third and fourth down he dons the magician’s cape for Kansas City. His Average Throw Depth goes up by almost three yards on late downs, his EPA per attempts jumps massively and on top of that, his scrambles become so much more effective.

Patrick Mahomes has been uber effective as a scrambler this year—ESPN’s Ben Solak wrote that Mahomes has a blistering 87.5% Success Rate on scrambles this year—and it comes at times when the Chiefs need him most. When Kansas City needs nine yards on 3rd and 8, they turn to Mahomes, who simply will not be denied:

Or, if there’s a hole in the zone on late downs, he just scrambles for just enough to piss you off watching on tv.

In a way, Mahomes has become the new age Tom Brady of NFL quarterbacking. Keeping the offense on schedule through early downs, but the little things that he does when it comes to moving in the pocket and manipulation of underneath defenders is what defines him on early downs. However, when the Chiefs need him most, his timely scrambles on late downs and traditional Mahomes magic define what the Chiefs do.

No, it’s not pretty, no, it’s not explosive. But it’s brutally efficient and has the most brutally efficient QB in the game at the forefront.