It’s an old cliché that athletes need to have short memories, but there’s usually plenty of truth to it. If you’re stuck on an earlier mistake (or bad call), it’s not going to bode well for future plays.
That’s exactly what happened with Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday.
By now, we’ve all seen the wild ending. With the Chiefs down three late in the game, Mahomes connected with Travis Kelce for what initially was going to be a big gain. But Kelce lateraled back to Kadarius Toney who would have scored the go-ahead touchdown had he not been called for a rare offensive offsides penalty.
Despite the deflating penalty, the Chiefs still had three more tries to get into field-goal range. But judging from Mahomes’ frustration over the call, we could see that the Chiefs really didn’t have much of a chance. (Warning: NSFW language in the video)
Patrick Mahomes did not like this call, a breakdown pic.twitter.com/lgR2CPIDV4
— Jomboy (@Jomboy_) December 11, 2023
In a breakdown video from Jomboy Media, they picked up on Mahomes complaining to the Chiefs bench about the penalty *before* the crucial fourth-down play. At one point, the Chiefs coaches desperately tried to get their franchise quarterback focused on the upcoming play because, after all, they still had a chance to at least set up a game-tying field goal.
There are several reasons, and I go through them here, the game was over after the TD was called back. Even though the #chiefs ran 3 more plays after it, the game was over the minute that play was called back. My perspective from the sideline at Arrowhead on The Insiders pic.twitter.com/5envqgl6uB
— James Palmer (@JamesPalmerTV) December 11, 2023
But given where Mahomes’ mindset was during that timeout, the resulting incompletion wasn’t a surprise. The Chiefs quarterback simply could not move on from that call, which was clear as he went off on officials and complained to Josh Allen during the postgame chat.
Fans also had thoughts on the breakdown video.