Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes subtly fires back at Raiders’ Kermit jab. Which part matters

For a few years now, we’ve delved into the very topic we’re about to cover for several hundred words here, though this time the ending will endure a bit of a twist.

That topic: the Patrick Mahomes slights and insults.

At him.

Not from him .

Whether it’s counting on his fingers in Chicago, or counting on them again in Baltimore, or responding to Ja’Marr Chase’s regrettable “ Pat Who ?” with a picture of his second Super Bowl ring, or more recently fighting with Ravens kicker Justin Tucker over pregame territory — we’ve covered all the examples, and they so frequently have the same conclusion that you can’t help but wonder why more examples continue to emerge.

But a funny thing happened this offseason, a contrast to every one before it.

Silence.

It’s been oddly quiet on the insult front, as though the rest of the league colluded to finally agree on the obvious: Hey, maybe we should stop finding ways to tick this guy off.

Well, Trey Taylor apparently slept through that meeting.

Taylor, a Raiders seventh-round pick who’s yet to play in an NFL game, during the team’s training camp picked up a Kermit the Frog puppet dressed like Mahomes, complete with a wig and jersey, and used it to poke fun of the Chiefs quarterback and his voice. You’ve probably seen the video by now.

Know who else has?

Patrick Mahomes.

“It’s still early in the year — stuff like that happens,” Mahomes said Friday when asked about it. “It will get handled when it gets handled.”

Uh-oh.

That’s typically how we react to these things because, well, that’s how the historical evidence suggest we react to these things.

But I’m going to say something I rarely say on this topic:

Meh.

It’s a proverbial shoulder shrug, which I fully realize is the exact opposite of my typical response to this sort of thing, so let me explain the exception: The Raiders already gave the Chiefs their motivational gift.

The Chiefs are already an offense on a revenge tour, of sorts, after their worst season in the Patrick Mahomes era. It “creates a fire and burn for this year,” as offensive coordinator Matt Nagy put it .

They’re circling this season.

They’re circling this game, too.

Before the Muppet.

It didn’t take Kermit the Frog for any of us to believe Mahomes is looking forward to playing the Raiders this season, in other words, and there’s only so much effect that can be multiplied — the Raiders provided one of the worst outings of his career on Christmas Day. He remembers.

Let’s take this a step further, though, because the Raiders provided a couple of others things, one in the short term and another in the long term. That Christmas afternoon game was the proverbial instant wake-up call, so obvious that after winning a Super Bowl six weeks later, Chiefs coach Andy Reid texted Raiders coach Antonio Pierce after the Super Bowl to thank him for it. The Chiefs, almost immediately after that loss, cleaned up the pre-snap issues rooted in their slump .

That holiday embarrassment, though, still has its effect here in St. Joseph, some seven months later, as the Chiefs prepare for an entirely new season.

That day, the Raiders had dared the Chiefs to beat them deep. They took away the underneath routes that had made the Chiefs successful — or successful enough, I’ll say — through the frustrations of offensive mediocrity, and the Chiefs still couldn’t push the football down the field. Mahomes completed 27 passes — and none of them traveled more than 20 yards in the air. Only three traveled more than 10 yards.

It robbed the Chiefs of the excuse that their offensive troubles — specifically their deep passing game — were all defense-related.

It was them.

It no longer is them.

At least that’s the idea. Their offseason was built around solving that issue. They signed speedy wide receiver Marquise Brown. They drafted Xavier Worthy, who ran the fastest 40 in NFL Scouting Combine history, in the first round. The deep passes, unsurprisingly, have been a theme of training camp.

More than a few games crystallized the need, to be sure — but none more than the Raiders game.

More than a few games crystallized the true effect of their pre-snap complications — but certainly none more than the Raiders game.

And those are gifts more valuable than a Muppet could provide.