The Houston Texans and Los Angeles Chargers were both drawn offside by Kansas City Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes in the first two weeks of the 2020 NFL season. In total, the Chiefs have drawn five defensive offside flags against their opponents this year. So what exactly is causing teams to jump offsides so often for Kansas City?
It’s a two-fold process according to Mahomes.
“Yeah, we work on changing up the snap count all throughout training camp and there are some rough days where you get a lot of false starts and stuff like that,” Mahomes said. “But it always makes you better whenever the season comes along. So I have the unique advantage of having a kind of unique voice that’s able to get those guys to jump offside. So I try to utilize that as much as possible.”
Not only did the Chiefs and Mahomes practice using cadence and the snap count to draw teams offside this summer, but he has an innate advantage. Mahomes believes that his unique voice can help him get defenders to jump offside. If you can’t recall what Mahomes sounds like, both Andy Reid and Tyreek Hill have likened Mahomes’ voice to Kermit the Frog. I’d say Mahomes has got a little more southern twang to his voice, but there’s definitely something froggish about it.
Mahomes thinks this advantage in drawing offside penalties, could even carry over into the dust-up between the Chiefs and Ravens in Week 3.
“Obviously, you get to use verbal snap count on the road and especially when we’re playing places like Baltimore you’re not going to be able to use that because of the crowd, especially Monday night so that definitely is an advantage,” Mahomes explained. “The only thing that’s kind of a disadvantage, you have to change a lot of your code words on a lot of your audibles because everybody can kind of hear you on the TV copy and everything like that.”
Playing in a fanless stadium will only help Mahomes and the Chiefs continue to take advantage of the snap count and cadence. Baltimore’s defensive front has drawn two defensive offside penalties so far this season. They’ll have to be mighty disciplined as to not fall victim to the unique voice of Mahomes on Monday.
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