Before Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes threw a football 62.2 yards in the air, something told him it was a bad idea. Actually, a lot of things told him it was a bad idea.
The coverage, for starters. Last year, it would have prevented him from taking the shot to rookie receiver Xavier Worthy that concluded with a 54-yard touchdown in Los Angeles. Heck, even a week earlier, Mahomes would have looked in another direction.
But last Sunday, even as he saw two Chargers defenders assigned to the deep route, a different thought entered his mind.
I don’t care.
Don’t take that literally. The point is he reared back and launched the ball anyway, the possibility of double-coverage be damned. And after Worthy hauled it in — one-handed — Mahomes galloped down the field in celebration.
All while a message awaited him on the sideline.
“(Bleep) it mentality!” Chiefs offensive coordinator Matt Nagy told him, as captured by NFL cameras, adding, “Let it rip. I love it.”
That play — most notably the, uh, forget it mentality — contrasts with much of what we’ve seen from Mahomes over the past few seasons. He is the NFL quarterback least likely to throw into tight-window coverage. But it fits neatly into an imitation of someone.
Himself.
The early version.
The young-and-doesn’t-know-any-better version.
You might recall that deep throws were once staples of the Chiefs’ offense. Mahomes took more shots than any quarterback in football in 2018. Completed more of them, too. It was his first year as starter, and PFF graded him 99.4 — darn near perfect — on throws that traveled more than 20 yards. He unleashed 92 of them that season, or 5.8 per game.
This year? He’s attempted 7.
That’s it.
We’ve repeated often that the opposition has smartened up. Defenses would prefer to not let Mahomes to just sling the football as far as he would like. This year, it’s a topic permeating the NFL. Offenses across the league, the Chiefs’ included, have looked putrid against a batch of cover-2 defenses, even though they are not exactly new to football.
But the longest throw Mahomes has ever completed in terms of air yards — those 62.2 yards Sunday in L.A., per Next Gen Stats — provides an insight not into a defensive mistake or a coverage-breaking route, but rather the quarterback’s frame of mind. And it’s a change that an injury-plagued Chiefs team will need more than ever.
It seems like a step forward.
It’s really an intentional step backward.
“When I was younger, I would just cut it loose,” Mahomes said. “I would just go through the reads the way (it) said on paper, and I would throw the deep shot if it was there — like, give it chances.
“And there are times now where I’m like, well, they’re in this coverage, and that’s not supposed to be there. But it is.”
Four years ago, Mahomes sat down for an episode of “The Shop,” a LeBron James production that featured star athletes and others, and said he’d only recently learned how to read defensive tendencies. That was a scary thought for the rest of the league: You think he’s good now? Just wait until he plays on smarts, rather than instinct.
But as that progression in education and recognition has taken place, and it very much has, it’s arrived with a drawback. Mahomes learned to diagnose a defense before the ball is even snapped, a credit to his study habits — but along with that, he also diagnoses not only where to go with the football, but where to most certainly not go.
He eliminates route possibilities before he’s holding the ball. Doesn’t even look at them. And guess what coverage he sees frequently? The deep shell.
An alert pops into his mind each time: Can’t throw it deep.
“Sometimes you give the defense too much credit,” Mahomes said. “They’re great, but at the same time, they’re playing football too, and they make mistakes. You have to find that balance of being — I don’t want to say naive, but reading the play the way it’s supposed to (unfold). Even if the coverage says it’s not going to be that guy (open), you have to take your chances.”
If it sounds like some sort of revelation, it kind of is.
Head coach Andy Reid was daring Mahomes in summer practices to take more chances. In a practice last week, the dare came from somewhere else.
Himself.
Again.
That play to Worthy? The Chiefs have run it plenty in practices, but Mahomes could only recall one of those throws going to Worthy. One day last week, he pulled the rookie to the side.
“If you get a step, I’m just going to put it up there and let you go make a play,” Mahomes said.
Worthy informed Mahomes that he planned to include a stutter on the go-route, just to fool the defense.
“Just make it fast,” Mahomes said.
On game day in L.A., Mahomes said he didn’t even completely see Worthy. He just spotted the safety taking one hesitation step toward Travis Kelce’s route underneath , and he just fired.
It’s a throw he wouldn’t have made all that long ago, because he wouldn’t have even given himself the chance to make it.
On Sunday, he took a risk.
He needs to take more of them now.
The Chiefs’ wide receiver room is not the one they anticipated going into the season. The weapons have been the center of the spotlight for three seasons now, but they chose to trade Tyreek Hill in 2022. They chose the group they had last year, too.
These circumstances have been placed upon them. They’re without Rashee Rice for at least the foreseeable future, if not the season. Apply that same phrasing to Hollywood Brown. The calculus changes. It has to.
Rice provided the Chiefs a solution to the shell coverages — get the ball in his hands and let him run through them.
Mahomes had the lowest average depth of target in the league among quarterbacks with at least 320 attempts last season, at 6.8. That’s what happens when you stop throwing the ball deep.
Rice was his most extreme example, with an average depth of target at 5.2. That was the lowest among all wide receivers last year.
Why? He’s terrific after the catch. Through three weeks, Rice had 185 yards after the catch, 44 more than any other NFL receiver.
That’s been the Chiefs’ solution.
It’s gone.
It makes even more sense, then, for part of the modification moving forward to include a glance backward. If the Chiefs are without two of their top weapons, taking a risk, particularly downfield, becomes a more attractive option. They don’t have like-for-like replacements for Rashee Rice on the roster.
The edge can come from the talent they do have — Mahomes. He has to be willing to take the risks. To give plays a chance he’s strategically — and, really, wisely — erased.
Well, risk is one way to phrase it.
Another?
Enact the (bleep) it mentality.
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