If you’re a Mahomes-ologist, you reckoned earlier last week that the game on Sunday night at Raymond James Stadium might just mean a little something more.
The Chiefs were coming off a discombobulated and distressing 20-17 loss in Indianapolis, and this sixth and likely last (again) matchup between Mahomes and Tom Brady loomed large.
Meanwhile, Mahomes seemed to be practically grinding his teeth trying to keep from being too blunt about Tampa Bay defender Shaquil Barrett suggesting the Bucs were expecting a “coming-out party” against the Chiefs’ offensive line.
All of that was consuming enough that Mahomes didn’t appreciate something else bubbling inside him until he arrived here: the lingering effect of that 31-9 debacle against Tampa Bay in Super Bowl LV.
“When I got to the stadium, I realized, ‘Man, I want to win here,’” he said. “The bad taste that I had the last time came into effect a little bit more.”
All of which made for an overwhelming formula for Mahomes and the Chiefs, who clobbered the Bucs 41-31 Sunday by seizing a 21-3 lead and scoring more points by halftime (28) than Tampa Bay had given up all season (27) ... and effectively stiff-arming them away for the duration.
So the Chiefs (3-1) won this game for a zillion reasons, including the offensive line bristling and the defense making more crucial plays (like L’Jarius Sneed’s strip-sack of Brady just when Tampa Bay had a sliver of a chance to get back in it) and the special teams instantly redeeming themselves for the Colts game by forcing a fumble on the first play of this one.
But most of all this once again reflected Mahomes and his transcendent gifts for meeting the moment, making everyone and everything around him better and, of course, his stunning ability to improvise and create — encapsulated by his absurd 2-yard touchdown pass to Clyde Edwards-Helaire after Mahomes had run nearly 40 yards in the backfield.
“The NFL hasn’t seen anything like Pat Mahomes,” said tight end Travis Kelce, whose 92 yards through Mahomes enabled him to move past Rob Gronkowski into fourth place in career receiving yards (9,328) among tight ends. “I promise you that, and you saw it today.
“He’s the Houdini of our era, man.”
The inimitable aspect of his style is part of why in the locker room after the game left tackle Orlando Brown would say “that (stuff) was insane.”
“Unbelievable stuff,” Sneed called it.
Stuff that coach Andy Reid, still marveling at his protege himself, would remind us as all as he reminds his staff: “Don’t take it for granted,” he said, as he pondered yet another in a series of phenomenal plays to be savored.
On a night when Mahomes also set NFL records for most touchdown passes (162) and yards (20,068) through 67 games, it also speaks to why Brady met him on the field afterward and said, “Great playing. You were great. Keep it up.” And followed that up in his postgame news conference by saying, “I love watching him play.”
At 3-3 against the 45-year-old Brady now, Mahomes is one of the few quarterbacks with a .500 or better record against the Tampa Bay quarterback. You might forgive Mahomes if he’s not sure there won’t be a tiebreaker, though.
“I feel like I’ve had ‘the last game against Tom Brady’ like four times now,” he said, smiling. “So until he is not on that field when I step on that field, I’m not going to believe it’s my last game against him.”
More nationally appealing as the Mahomes-Brady matchup might be, though, that’s a subordinate story in certain ways.
Because most of all the Mahomes story in Kansas City always has been, remains and will continue to be about how he galvanizes and inspires and rallies by at once being a superstar and the epitome of a team player.
“Just willing our team into the end zone; just willing our team to win,” Kelce said. “That’s our ultimate leader, man.”
It helps to have an amazing arm. But on this night of more milestones, it bears reminding that Mahomes is so much more than that.
His game, indeed his very persona, is animated by an uncanny attunement to everything around him. His longtime personal trainer, Bobby Stroupe, likens it to a “sixth sense.”
That was plenty evident in a game in which Mahomes completed 23 of 37 passes for 249 yards and three touchdowns.
But nothing framed that aspect more vividly than the touchdown pass to Edwards-Helaire that had to be as demoralizing for the Bucs as it was exhilarating for the Chiefs … another familiar dynamic of Mahomes’ play.
“I’ve been on the field for a lot of crazy things,” Brown said. “Obviously, that was one of the more (crazy) ones. I wasn’t sure what he had going on.”
In a certain sense, neither did Mahomes.
At least not at the start.
But this is where his capacity to invent and slow down the game around him distinguishes him.
And it’s why he can rather routinely pull off things that seem risky to those who follow him from afar but quite calculated to those who have seen the catalog of how his mind bends traditional boundaries.
Another great thing about that mind, by the way, is the combination of his recall and willingness to take us on a magic carpet ride with him breaking down such moments.
In this case, the Chiefs had second and goal at the Bucs 2 leading 14-3 early in the second quarter.
Because he is who he is, Mahomes set it up by noting he was “upset with myself” after misfiring two plays before when he got gridlocked over whether to lob or rifle a pass to Jerick McKinnon.
As he rolled out to the right for what would become a serpentine, pirouetting, 39.4-yard jaunt behind the line (per Next Gen Stats), no one was open among his first reads. So he kept working to extend the play.
“I was able to use my speed, little bit of speed, to get around the edge there,” he said. “And then I was going to run for it, and they kind of flew around and I realized I wasn’t going to make it.”
Processing dozens of elements of data simultaneously in real-time, Mahomes spun to create some time and space and suddenly had a new plan instead of hoping to get to the end zone pylon.
“I think the spin made me kind of decide to throw it again,” he said, “because I knew once I spun I wasn’t going to be able to build the speed to get in there.”
Meanwhile, Edwards-Helaire had slid to the back of the end zone to help make order out of chaos through the scramble drills and accrued chemistry that enable such moments — even if they might seem unfathomable to the layperson … or even the lay left tackle.
“When I saw him spin,” Brown said, “I was like, ‘Oh, my God, what’s going on?’”
Shazam, it became a 2-yard TD lob by way of what Mahomes called “a spin and a little, I don’t know, basketball pass.”
So much more went into that, of course, starting with the sense of both where he is and how he connects with others that is the essence of Mahomes’ greatness.
“It’s not like I’m planning these things where I’m throwing sidearm or whatever it is, spinning, running around,” he said. “I always say, ‘I’m a competitor.’
“I’m going to find whatever way I can to make our team have success.”
Still and again, in ways no one has ever seen before.
