Patrick Mahomes is the most dynamic quarterback in the NFL today. Of that, there is little doubt. And after their win over the Denver Broncos last Thursday, the Kansas City Chiefs stand at 5-1 on the season. So, it looks like business as usual for the defending Super Bowl champs. The Chiefs rank fifth in Passing DVOA, so you might assume that everything is awesome with Mahomes and the offense.
Not so fast, as they say. Through the first six weeks of the 2023 season, Mahomes and that offense have come up seriously short on deep passes.
In the 2021 regular season and postseason, Mahomes completed 33 of 76 deep passes for 1,168 yards, nine touchdowns, three interceptions, seven turnover-worthy throws, and a passer rating of 113.4.
In 2022, Mahomes completed 28 of 66 deep passes for 931 yards, three touchdowns, no interceptions, three turnover-worthy throws, and a passer rating of 104.7.
In 2023, Mahomes has completed eight of 23 deep passes for 278 yards, no touchdowns, three interceptions, six turnover-worthy throws, and a passer rating of 38.5. Only Jameis Winston, Anthony Richardson, and Jordan Love have a lower passer rating on those deep passes, and no quarterback has more turnover-worthy throws on them.
Why is Mahomes struggling this much with deep throws, and what are defenses doing to amplify those frustrations? Let’s take a look under the hood.
Coverage switches affected Mahomes against the Vikings.
Two days after the 27-20 Week 3 win over the Minnesota Vikings — a game in which Mahomes had three deep incompletions — he got into the whys and wherefores.
“I thought we took a step in a positive direction,” he said, when asked about the deep passes in general. “That’s a hard scheme to go against, the amount of pressure, the amount of dropping out, the Cover-0. I thought the young guys did a good job of being in the right spot at the right time. I think selfishly for myself, if I could hit some of those deep shots that when we did get the opportunities.”
When Mahomes talked about the Cover-0, he may have been thinking about this deep incompletion to Travis Kelce with 11:45 left in the first quarter. The Vikings showed Cover-0 pre-snap, and shifted to Cover-3 post-snap. Mahomes turned his back for the play fake to running back Isiah Pacheco, and when he turned back around, he saw a completely different coverage. Mahomes still had Kelce one-on-one with safety Cameron Bynum, and you can understand why he’d take that shot 10 out of 10 times. Problem was, Bynum made a great play, and that was another shot the Chiefs didn’t make.
“The one to [receiver] Justin Watson, I missed the corner, they got me with the scheme, so I tried to lay him out to the sideline instead of throwing it over the middle,” Mahomes said of the incompletion to Watson with 7:18 left in the first half. The scheme started with the Vikings playing Cover-3, but switching safeties Josh Metellus, who started at the line of scrimmage and dropped into the deep third, and Bynum, who dropped to flat coverage.
“The one to Marquez (Valdes-Scantling), and even though there was a guy there, he made a good play. I can put it out there, but… you hit him on those deep throws right there. The rest of the offense was going, so we just have to hit those deep ones when they’re there.”
That incompletion with 12:59 left in the first half was predicated by a five-man rush and a frontside three-man overload. Mahomes had to move out of the pocket, and ultimately didn’t get what he wanted on the scramble rules.
“Whenever you do get those opportunities, you have to hit them, and that’s something that I tell myself every week,” Mahomes said in general after the Vikings game. “We haven’t hit them at a high enough pace this season so far, but we have historically so let’s just try to continue to work them and practice them. And then when we get opportunities in the game let’s try to hit them. As far as the rest if the offense, I thought we did a good job of just moving the ball around, taking what was underneath, but yeah, when we get those opportunities, you just have to hit them in this league.”
Defenses are stopping the deep balls with different concepts.
Opposing defenses aren’t doing as much of the “Rush 3/Drop 8” thing to Mahomes as was the case before — but they’re throwing a ton of base fronts at him, and getting tricky in coverage. Mahomes has faced four pass-rushers on a league-high 192 dropbacks, completing 118 of 171 passes for 1,219 yards, 479 air yards, seven touchdowns, and all five of his interceptions.
And against those four-man fronts, Mahomes has completed just six of 16 passes of 20 or more air yards for 208 yards, 168 air yards, no touchdowns, and two interceptions.
“I think it’s just different – I think we’re getting more coverage than even I expected,” Mahomes said after the Broncos game regarding the offense’s lack of explosiveness. “I know we said that a couple years back, but I mean, there’s a lot of deep coverages and it’s forcing us to be patient, drive the length of the field, and I think teams are just, with the young guys, and trying to integrate them, they’re going to say, ‘We’re going to make you drive the field and score touchdowns.’
“I thought we did a good job of driving the field, we just didn’t score the touchdowns today and so defenses are going to do that. We have to continue to get better and better at it and then when the opportunity arises and we get man coverage, we have to make sure we hit those deep ones.”
Let’s go back to Week 1, when the Detroit Lions handed the Chiefs their only loss of the season. Mahomes completed two deep passes on seven attempts in that game, and while one incompletion was on a late fourth-and-25 when Mahomes was trying to keep up, it’s instructive to review the other two deep incompletions in which the Lions had just four rushers. Both came against Cover-4, and both were byproducts of another thing the Chiefs are dealing with this season — defenses are flooding the intermediate middle of the field to reduce the effectiveness of Kansas City’s crossing-route concepts.
The first came with 1:54 left in the first half, and Mahomes was trying to hit receiver Richie James on a deep backside vertical route. But the Lions ran their Quarters coverage back as far as James was going to run, and when Mahomes cut this one loose, cornerback Jerry Jacobs had James all the way up the field, and safety Kerby Joseph was deep to help.
And with 9:37 left in the third quarter, Mahomes tried to hit Justin Watson on another deep vert. This time, it was cornerback Cameron Sutton who had the deep route covered, with Joseph helping again. The Chiefs used to counter those deep coverages with shorter stuff underneath, but as defenses are adjusting to take those crossers away, it’s becoming more difficult.
How to turn it around.
You would think that the Chiefs run the ball well against all those light boxes, and that’s been exactly the case — against six or fewer defenders in the box this season, Kansas City has run the ball 59 times this season (only the Eagles and Colts have done it more) for 350 yards, 143 yards after contact, and 5.9 yards per carry. So, that’s one way to make defenses pay for what they’re doing to Mahomes.
In the passing game, though? It may be a situation where Mahomes has to wait for the chemistry with new receivers to kick in. And getting the shorter stuff going to the point where defenses have to start squatting in the deep third, as opposed to spamming the Chiefs with the concepts that are affecting that explosive passing game. We would like to see more route combinations designed to create more obvious openings — maybe that’s something that Andy Reid and offensive coordinator Matt Nagy need to cook up before Kansas City takes on the Los Angeles Chargers in Week 7.
These transient issues won’t stop Mahomes from slinging it downfield, but as well as the Chiefs’ defense is playing right now, maybe he doesn’t need to be as transcendent as he’s trying to be.
“I’m just used to going out there and being able to – I have that mentality I want to go out there and score every drive, that’s how I’ve always been and that’s how I’ll always be.,” he recently said. “At the same time, you got to win the football game, so I can’t let maybe a drive or two that we didn’t get in the endzone effect the full scope of the entire game. That’s something that I’ve learned in my career, so instead of trying to press or do something crazy or scramble around or do something, I’m just going to push and take it one play at a time to move the ball down the field and I know that if our defense is playing that well, if I can just continue to just put points on the board, we’re going to win the football game and at the end of the day, that’s all that matters.”
You want to give the Chiefs the benefit of the doubt that they’ll figure this out. But until that happens, this formerly frightening passing game is floundering where it once was just about impossible to stop.
