Much has been made about the heated discussion between Eric Bieniemy and Patrick Mahomes that occurred at the end of the first half of the Kansas City Chiefs’ Week 3 loss to the Indianapolis Colts.
After the game, Mahomes was asked about what took place in that discussion.
“I mean, at the end of the day I wanted to go try to score,” Mahomes explained. “I mean, that’s just who I am. We were in a tough situation. I believe it was second or third-and-20, something like that. Probably the smart decision was to just take – we got the ball at the half and just go to halftime, but I’m always going to be wanting to score.”
Elaborating more on the situation, Mahomes emphasized that his frustration was about not getting the opportunity to go out and score. He also said he wouldn’t classify it as an “altercation.”
“I pretty much just said, ‘Let me have a chance at it,’ and then he was just, like, ‘Let’s get back in the locker room and we’ll get something going for the next half.’ I guess, I don’t know if that’s an altercation, but that was the end of the conversation.”
Mahomes specifically didn’t like the run call on second down, which eventually would bleed out the clock.
“It was the run because I tried to go deep the first two times, and obviously, they were in a deep coverage,” Mahomes explained. “And I was just – all I said was, ‘I’m not going to turn it over.’ I’ll get it out and try to get it to the sideline and get us a chance to kick a field goal, but it’s a tough situation. Me, I’m on the field, I’m playing. I want to always try to go score. That’s who I am, but that’s their job is to make sure they manage the game the right way.”
Speaking to 610 Sports Radio’s Carrington Harrison on Monday, Mahomes continued to elaborate on the situation. He felt that the video from CBS might have exacerbated something that really wasn’t a big deal.
“After seeing the video, I see why people thought it was a bigger deal than what it was,” Mahomes said. “As an offensive player and someone who wants to score every single time you’re on the field, I wanted to take another chance and try to get it down the field and get out of bounds and try to give us a chance to get a hail mary or kick a field goal. But they kind of made the decision — not just coach (Eric) Bieniemy, it was Coach Reid and the whole offensive staff — we were in a good spot. We had the lead and we could just kind of get to the half and refocus. Having the ball coming out of the half, we didn’t want to make a big mistake there at the half. So, that’s their job and I’ve got to be better about knowing when that is the right decision, but at the same time, I always want to score. That’s just who I am.”
Mahomes isn’t going to always see eye to eye with the offensive coaching staff and vice versa. He believes that it’s a good thing so long as it doesn’t interfere with the end goal.
“Sometimes there is a little disagreement here and there, but we know that we’re trying to do whatever we can to win at the end of the day,” Mahomes said. “If that’s not the case, it becomes something different. But that is the case and we’ve been together for a long time and won a lot of football games together.”
As for resolving this particular disagreement, Mahomes says it’s already water under the bridge. Both he and Bieniemy are focused on the next task at hand in the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
“It kind of just goes by,” Mahomes said. “Right when we got to the locker room, we were talking as if it never even happened. We both understand that we’re trying to do whatever we can to win the game. At the end of the day, that’s all it is. It’s not like these things linger around or anything like that. I’ll have disagreements with other people as well. It’s not like it’s just something with (Eric Bieniemy). It’s just that you want to win. And when you have a lot of people that care and that want to win, there will be little disagreements. But you come together and have to find a way to win at the end of the day.”
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