There are two kinds of interceptions: There are the interceptions a quarterback throws that are his fault, and there are the interceptions a quarterback throws that are not his fault. There are subgroups in those two larger groups, but you get the idea. Example: Carson Wentz threw several interceptable passes against the 49ers in Week 7, and it all came home to roost with some really boneheaded picks in Week 8. These things happen.
In the case of Patrick Lavon Mahomes II, there are the 10 interceptions he’s thrown this season, several of which are not technically his fault. Several of those picks have bounced off the hands of his receivers when in previous seasons, his receivers would have caught those passes, and probably done something amazing after the catch for yet another explosive play.
This season, it’s much more like this first-quarter interception against the Giants — a play in which the ball bounced off two Chiefs players before resting in the hands of cornerback Julian Love.
Batted up in the air and intercepted in the end zone! #TogetherBlue
📺: #NYGvsKC on ESPN
📱: https://t.co/Ws0sbkS0nd pic.twitter.com/tvKxWR8Ygr— NFL (@NFL) November 2, 2021
To try and break the different types of interceptions down, Football Outsiders has a metric called Adjusted Interceptions, which separates “actual” interceptions from turnovers that are the fault of the receiver (either dropped or tipped into the hands of a defender), or are in Hail Mary situations. Conversely, FO also tracks interceptions that should have happened had the defender not dropped the ball.
In 2018, Mahomes’ first season as an NFL starter, he threw 12 interceptions. Two more were listed as either Hail Mary or at the end of the fourth quarter. 10 were dropped by defenders, leaving Mahomes with an Adjusted Interception total of 21, tied for the league lead with Sam Darnold, then of the New York Jets.
In 2019, Mahomes threw just five interceptions. But five more were dropped, leaving him with 10 Adjusted Interceptions. That was way down the list for starting quarterbacks (Jameis Winston led the league with a whopping 40 in 2019), but once again, you can see how these things tend to go.
In 2020, Mahomes threw six interceptions, which gave him the NFL’s lowest interception rate at 1.0%. But he had seven dropped interceptions, and that total of 13 tied him with Drew Brees, Tua Tagovailoa, and Ryan Fitzpatrick for the eighth-most Adjusted Interceptions in the league. Wentz was first with 21, which proves that eventually, even if it takes a while, these things come home to roost.
Patrick Mahomes had thrown 24 regular-season interceptions in his career before 2021. 22 more were dropped. That he’s now thrown 10 this season, and that so many of them aren’t his fault in the ways we generally blame quarterbacks from an efficiency perspective, is more about the ball bouncing in bad ways for the Chiefs as the ball had not bounced before. Mahomes’ interception total this season is as much about the vagaries of fate and regression as they are about Mahomes “playing terribly” or “doing too much.”
Yes, Mahomes doing too much is a problem this season, but his luck has turned cold, and he’s just going to have to wait that part out. Before his luck turned cold, there were a lot of plays in which Mahomes allegedly did too much that turned into remarkable, career-defining plays.