DENVER — As Patrick Mahomes stepped to the podium after the Chiefs’ exasperating 34-28 victory over Denver on Sunday at Empower Field at Mile High, he cleared his throat. And he either sighed or exhaled, depending on your interpretation.
Either way, that spoke eloquently to their pratfalls along the way after the Chiefs seized a 27-0 first-half lead over a 3-9 team with the worst offense in the NFL before having to fend off the Broncos … even after Russell Wilson was knocked out of the game with a concussion.
In the aftermath, it didn’t feel much like their 14th straight win over Denver. Or a victory that left them 10-3 and on the verge of clinching their seventh straight AFC West if Miami were to beat the Chargers later on Sunday.
Instead, it felt mostly like a day to make you worry about what qualities the Chiefs seem to lack. And to reckon they had been fortunate to win after once again demonstrating a tendency to slack up when they have a chance to administer the knockout.
Mahomes also would tell you the Chiefs only won because they overcame his game, a reference to the three interceptions he threw that he wanted to address immediately.
So when I asked him if that little gasp reflected the day, he went right there.
“Yeah, just three bad decisions,” Mahomes said.
The first, he said, he had forced. The second he had been trying to throw into the ground to just burn, but Denver’s Pat Surtain made a great play to get his arm under it and cradle it in.
Each of those was converted into Denver touchdowns, making it 27-14 at halftime to allow the Broncos to cut the lead to 27-21 on the opening drive of the second half.
Then the third one, he said, was “just bad-bad because of the situation.” It came with 6 minutes left and the Chiefs facing third and 4 at the Denver 35.
But that one at least was offset two plays later when Chris Jones hit backup Denver quarterback Brett Rypien as he threw, making for an inadvertent lob picked off by L’Jarius Sneed.
And you could say all three were more than offset during the course of a game that also featured Mahomes throwing for 352 yards and three touchdowns and adding at least two more jaw-dropping moments to his stupefying highlight reel.
Like the 56-yard touchdown flick or flip or fling to Jerick McKinnon that also appeared to be no-look. That fine encore at the stadium where he once completed a left-handed pass became an instant national highlight. Heck, even during the play, guard Trey Smith said, lineman were “running down the field and we were just shaking our heads like, ‘Man, that was insane.’ That’s just classic Pat.”
Just like his 4-yard TD pass to JuJu Smith-Schuster after pirouetting in the pocket and releasing it as four Broncos converged on him.
So, sure, it was one of those days for Mahomes, who lamented “trying to force it when it’s not there” and “just being a little too loose with the football.” A day that left him reiterating how he’s “got to just find that fine line of when I’m going that type of stuff and it’s good for us and when I do stuff and it’s bad for us.”
In this chapter of the narrative arc of an already majestic career, though, it’s fairly safe to say this was an outlier. Even magic carpets rides take dips.
For that matter, it’s interesting to note that this was probably the sort of game that those who didn’t perceive what Mahomes could be in the NFL thought would be the rule more than the exception: He’d make a lot of big plays, sure, but a lot of big mistakes trying to always go big.
Instead, this was just the third time in his career that Mahomes has thrown three interceptions in a game. And coach Andy Reid was right when he said “every quarterback who’s played in this league a while has had a game like this” and that Mahomes made numerous exceptional plays around the interceptions.
We’d say those were a key part of the difference between a scare and a devastating loss.
We’d also say the more disconcerting part of this game was (even more than the insistence on Michael Burton inside on third and short) the defense that allowed Denver a season-high 28 points.
Despite six sacks and two interceptions, including Willie Gay’s remarkable pick-6, there were so many tackling whiffs and apparent blown assignments that defensive end Frank Clark put it this way in the locker room afterward.
“This is their Super Bowl. We’re on the hunt; our mission is way bigger than just this game,” he said. “But when you have a team like this in the way, things can go left. And I feel like that’s what happened.”
On Twitter later, he expressed the drift more strongly:
“Terrible freaking game! We will get better As a collective! With Late games In the season it’s imperative that we operate on the same page, as ONE. -Love.”
Put another way: One way or another, this defense needs to be much better if the Chiefs are going anywhere in the postseason.
Now, it’s also true that Mahomes’ first two interceptions gave the Broncos life.
While the defense was free to stop the Broncos drives of 42 and 65 yards in the final minutes of the half, the game’s dynamics aren’t in a vacuum and it’s hard to say where one issue bled into the other.
What we can say with conviction is that Mahomes is a voracious learner and intense competitor with the self-awareness to know he has to get better from this experience.
“I promise you I know when I’m messing up,” Mahomes said. “When I go to the sideline, I’m hot.”
But the message from Reid and other coaches is “keep slinging it.”
Not that Mahomes has to be prompted much.
“I think you know with me, I’m not going to be scared to throw it,” he said. “I’m going to keep shooting. I think that’s what it takes in order to win. You don’t want to play scared or timid, and when you throw an interception kind of shut down. I think that’s the worst way. You lose games that way.”
A signature of that mindset was in the crucible at game’s end.
Facing third and 11 at the Kansas City 25 with 3 minutes, 11 seconds to go, Mahomes audibled at the line and found Marquez Valdes-Scantling for 20 yards.
That was essential to the Chiefs being able to run out the clock.
Yes, the game was way closer than it should have been. Again.
But it also was yet another win.
And even if it wasn’t one to savor, exactly, it was a box checked … and more data for the ever-whirring mind of Mahomes.
“He’ll learn from mistakes, which not everybody does,” Reid said. “But he will.”
