Tag: patrick mahomes browns

Chiefs score two touchdowns in 3:06 to beat Browns in furious comeback

The Browns thought they had the Chiefs beaten. They forgot about that Patrick Mahomes guy, and how the Chiefs score in bunches.

First of all, we now know that the 11-5 record the Browns put up last season, and their trip to the divisional round against the Chiefs? That was not noise. This team is for real on both sides of the ball. But unfortunately, the Browns were going up against the Chiefs again, and that meant their only hope of winning was to play at their optimal level through all 60 minutes of the game. Anything less than that is a recipe for disaster against the Chiefs and Patrick Mahomes.

The Browns discovered that with certainty on Sunday afternoon.

When receiver Jarvis Landry took the ball five yards in for a rushing touchdown, the Browns had a 15-3 lead with 13:28 left in the first half. And even after the Chiefs’ offense woke up and started to trade haymakers, Cleveland hung right with the defending AFC champs. Baker Mayfield completed 21 of 28 passes for 321 yards, and though he didn’t throw a touchdown pass, it didn’t seem to matter, because Nick Chubb ran for two scores, and Kareem Hunt ran for another to go along with Landry’s rushing touchdown.

But the Browns didn’t get explosive scoring plays in the passing game, and if you don’t have those against the Chiefs, the Chiefs will eventually make you pay for it. Payment first came due with Cleveland up 29-20.

With 10:24 left in the game, Mahomes rolled to his right, found Tyreek Hill with single coverage, and 75 yards later, what generally happens when Tyreek Hill is single-covered happened again. Safety John Johnson, a smart free-agent acquisition, was the victim in this case.

The Browns went three-and-out on their next possession, and even worse, they made a crucial mistake. Punter Jamie Gillan fumbled his attempt, and the Chiefs had the ball at the Cleveland 15-yard line. Two Clyde Edwards-Helaire runs later, Mahomes hit Travis Kelce for the go-ahead touchdown.

Kansas City’s defense then clamped down, forcing another three-and-out after Kelce’s score. And then, with 1:09 left in the game, and the ball at the Cleveland 48-yard line for the Browns, Mayfield made the one mistake he hadn’t made to that point — an interception into the hands of cornerback Mike Hughes, traded to Kansas City from the Vikings in the offseason.

All Mayfield could do was to beat the ground, and wonder what the heck you have to do to beat those guys. He may get another chance to find out in the playoffs, but for now, the Chiefs’ status as the AFC pacesetter is secure — even if it looked shaky to start.

Patrick Mahomes has never thrown an interception — or lost a game — in September

Patrick Mahomes is always hard to stop. But in Septembers, he’s been impossible to even slow down.

If you want to get to Patrick Mahomes and limit his performance when the Chiefs’ offense is fully healthy, that’s obviously a tall task. If you want to do so in September, that’s even tougher. Through his NFL career and three full seasons as Kansas City’s starting quarterback, the Chiefs have never lost a game in September — they’re 10-0 — and Mahomes’ stats are just bizarrely great. He’s completed 250 of 370 passes (67.6%) in Septembers in his career for 3304 yards (8.93 yards per attempt), 32 touchdowns, no interceptions, and a passer rating of 124.4. That’s pretty good. Mahomes has also been sacked just nine times for 50 yards in the first month of his three starting seasons, which has a lot to do with it.

As Andy Reid said this week, the fact that opponents don’t have a ton of regular-season tape to judge what Kansas City’s offensive tendencies are also helps.

“For the first three games, that’s the way it is. Once you get past that third game, now you’ve got at least some data. So, it’s that way for everybody and it’s that way on both sides of the ball. Not that there’s always – they could do this, you come into it new and fresh, and you expect there will be something you haven’t seen, and you have to adjust to it.”

For Mahomes, getting started quickly out of the gate has to do with an overall mentality.

“I think we just stress the importance of starting the season fast. We have a very tough training camp as everyone knows. We really compete and go at it every single day at practice, and I think prepares us to be ready to go from day one. I think just stressing the importance of – we’ve kind of come out, in my time at least with a lot of really good football teams up early in the season and we know that if you lose a game in September it could cost you at the end of the season as far  as seeding if you’re trying to get into the playoffs. So, we just stress the importance of knowing that we’re playing against really good football teams in the beginning of the year.”

Now, it’s up to the Browns to become the first team to make Mahomes look mortal in the first month of a season. Cleveland has a radically rebuilt secondary this season, and one of the reasons they did that was because they had no deep safeties, but… in September, 2020, against the Ravens, Bengals, and Washington, the Browns allowed 79 completions on 124 attempts (63.7%) for 831 yards (6.7 yards per attempt), eight touchdowns, and just three interceptions.

Denzel Ward, Cleveland’s best cornerback, allowed two of those touchdowns, so it’s not just about the new safeties. And the last time we saw Ward, he was getting completely turned around by Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce on this filthy pivot route in the divisional playoffs.

So. As high as we all are on the Browns this year, and justifiably so, facing Mahomes again brings its own set of complications. In September, the math turns from simple multiplication to advanced algebra. This afternoon, we’ll see how the Browns will counter this stark reality.