There was a time when a Kansas City Chiefs quarterback completing 65 percent of his passes for 236 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions would have been considered a great outing. For starting quarterback Patrick Mahomes, we’ve learned those numbers are pedestrian.
While Mahomes wasn’t specifically concerned with his performance on the stat sheet following Week 4, he was well aware that he didn’t play a great game against the New England Patriots.
“They have a lot of good veteran players, I think that’s the first thing,” Mahomes told reporters after the game. “When you have good players and you do different schemes and you’re able to do that, you’re usually a pretty good defense. As for us, I feel like especially me, I didn’t execute at a high enough level when you’re playing against a defense like that if you want to go out there and have success.”
The Patriots have a history of frustrating Mahomes. Bill Belichick’s defenses have now held him without a first-half touchdown on three occasions. The third occurred last night, with the others occurring in the 2018 AFC championship game and in Week 6 of the 2018 season. New England’s defense wasn’t doing anything special either according to Mahomes. He again pointed to his own need to execute.
“A little similar to what Houston was doing. Not so much the Chargers, but I mean they just played well,” Mahomes said of the Patriots defensive gameplan. “And when guys were open, it seemed like I wasn’t finding them, and I could see it on the tablet when we would go to the sideline. We were calling plays that were getting guys open, I just got to be able to be the guy to find them and get it to those guys so they can make plays happen.”
Mahomes was later asked about whether focus shifted with all the hubbub of COVID-19 and the game being delayed a day. The differences were certainly stark and while this season has proven to keep everyone on their toes, it’s no excuse for what he saw as poor execution.
“Obviously it was a little different, but you have to be able to expect the unexpected,” Mahomes said of the game delay. “I thought the guys did a good job of staying focused, but obviously, we didn’t have the success as an offense that we wanted to. Just trying to go into this next week knowing we’re going against a division opponent with a good team and we’re going to have to play our best football if we want to find a way to get a win.”
What really stands out here is that Mahomes is unwilling to throw anyone under the bus. It’s never the plays or his teammates at fault for a lack of success at any given moment. Instead, it’s always him.
That’s a rare type of leadership and accountability that you don’t always see in the NFL. That mindset will help this team get better moving forward. I certainly wouldn’t want to be the Las Vegas Raiders this week because Mahomes seems determined to come out and have a better performance.
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