It has become a routine in late January. A Super Bowl berth on the line. Tony Romo, sounding like a toddler three Mountain Dews deep, on the call. Patrick Mahomes leading the Kansas City Chiefs out into the AFC championship game.
“You cannot doubt No 15,” Romo said after the Chiefs beat the Buffalo Bills in the divisional round last weekend. Who is? At this point, having the AFC title game without Mahomes would be like showing the Oscars without Martin Scorsese.
It’s hard to even remember the Before Mahomes times. Before the highlight throws and Houdini-like playmaking. Before the Chiefs – Andy Reid, Chris Jones, Travis Kelce, Mahomes – were the main characters on championship Sundays. In the 40 years before Mahomes became the Chiefs’ starting quarterback, KC were 4-15 in the playoffs. Since Mahomes assumed the job, they are 13-3 in the postseason, making the AFC Championship Game a record six-straight times.
The Chiefs’ trip to Baltimore this weekend will be the team’s toughest title test to date. Even in the infamous ‘13 seconds’ matchup with the Bills, Mahomes was on an even playing field. He had a star-studded receiving corps, and could go toe-to-toe with another all-world offense.
It will be different this year. The Ravens have a great quarterback complemented by a terrifying defense. And the Chiefs are no juggernaut. The defense is the team’s best unit these days, but KC’s offense sputtered throughout the season. By the typical standards of Reid and Mahomes, it was downright ragged. By the midpoint of the season, anything outside the Mahomes-to-Kelce connection in the passing game had hit red-alert levels. They finished the regular season 11th in EPA per play, a measure of down-to-down efficiency. They scored on just 39% of their drives, putting them 10th in the league, the first time they’ve fallen outside the top three in the Mahomes era.
Playoff Mahomes pic.twitter.com/v6rT2bZ4oQ
— Computer Cowboy (@benbbaldwin) January 22, 2024
In some ways, this was part of the team’s long-term vision. Building a team that can maximize the present while also staying competitive over an entire decade involves a limbo dance, given the restrictions of the salary cap. KC looked to the Brady-Belichick model to try to sustain their dynastic run. Over the past couple of seasons, they’ve poured resources into their defense and offensive line, theorizing that Mahomes alone could elevate an underbaked group of offensive weapons. They chased cast-offs and mid-round picks at the receiving spots under the assumption that anyone could shine alongside their quarterback. They were hoping to squeeze one final prime year out of the 34-year-old Kelce – Mahomes’s favored target – before his inevitable decline.
That team-building philosophy has, in part, paid off. The Chiefs have one of the fiercest – and youngest – defenses in the league. But it was also a season of frustration for Mahomes – and the worst statistical season of his career. The offense was often one-dimensional, with a rotating cast of receivers, rookie Rashee Rice aside, vanishing like vampires who had got a whiff of garlic.
Heading into December, the Chiefs’ offense continued to routinely stall out. They looked well short of the championship standard. A receiver room that entered the season as the weakest group among any contender led the league in drops. Kelce was having a down year by his lofty norms. The most sure thing, behind Kelce, was Isiah Pacheco and the running game.
The solution: pivot the offense, ditching the old bombs away approach for a bigger, more bruising style. Mahomes cut down on some of his out-of-time artistry, moving towards a more calculated approach. With Kelce the focus of opposing defenses, he distributed the ball around more, even as his receivers struggled. By the end of the regular season, he ranked 38th among 41 eligible quarterbacks in average air yards. Patrick Mahomes – PATRICK MAHOMES – was forced to, and embraced, playing like Jimmy Garoppolo.
Given those constraints, it’s remarkable that the Chiefs are here again. It hasn’t been Mahomes’ best season, but it’s been one of his most impressive.
Mahomes has had to carry the offense on his lonesome, for the first time in his career. When it’s mattered most, he’s raised his game. On third downs this season, he finished third in EPA per play. His top two individual outings of the year? At home against the Miami Dolphins in the wildcard round, and on the road in Buffalo last week. He has yet to make a turnover-worthy throw in the playoffs.
It’s a sign of Mahomes’s unique greatness that this all feels so normal. Like Michael Jordan in the mid-90s, Mahomes’ excellence has become normal. We expect him to scale new heights every year, so when he’s merely great it feels like a disappointment. That he was able to lead this group to a division title is one thing. That he led them to victories over the Dolphins and Bills in the playoffs stands among his finest accomplishments.
If there ever was a year to knock off the Chiefs before the AFC Championship Game, this was it. If there was a team, it was the Bills. They finally forced the Chiefs to play in their house in the postseason. And it meant nothing. By the time January rolled around, Playoff Mahomes had arrived, as he always does.
Watching Mahomes shrug off pressure never gets old for me pic.twitter.com/YiNy86xqrt
— Mina Kimes (@minakimes) January 22, 2024
It hasn’t been a one-man show, but you don’t need too many fingers to count the number of other quarterbacks who could have navigated this season’s murky waters. Even this season’s MVP candidates have flatlined in years when they don’t have an A-list supporting cast.
Mahomes will need to conjure something special to keep pace with the Ravens and the Lamar Jackson freight train on Sunday. And he will face Mike Macdonald, Baltimore’s defensive wizard, who just happens to run a style that has given Mahomes problems in the past.
If the Chiefs can pull off the upset in Baltimore on Sunday, it will be another crowning moment for the quarterback. Mahomes has shown he can take a ho-hum offense and drag it within striking distance of the promised land.
