In our first segment of Chiefs Mythbusters, Jacob Harris says you shouldn’t expect the Rolls-Royce offense from Patrick Mahomes in year one.
“When you’re a parent and you give your kid the keys to the car there’s a certain amount of trust that goes there… That’s kind of what you do with a quarterback. You teach them, and you start off where you kind of got to feed them and feed them, and you’re controlling most of the action there, as far as what freedom they have at the line of scrimmage to change plays. And they just get to a point where you go ‘You know what, he’s got the keys to the car.’ And the longer they go it goes from a beat up ‘60s model to… pretty soon you’re driving the Rolls-Royce.”
That was Andy Reid in an interview with Graham Bensinger last September before the 2017 season kicked off. I bring it up to highlight this point: the 2017 Chiefs offense under Alex Smith was a quarterback with the keys to the Rolls-Royce. The 2018 Chiefs offense under Patrick Mahomes likely won’t be even a quarterback with the keys to the beat up ‘60s model, but one driving the playbook equivalent of the driver’s ed car with those extra pedals in the passenger side, so the instructor can hit the breaks when their student is about to run a red light.
Which isn’t a knock on Mahomes. He’s ostensibly a rookie with some extra seasoning, and Andy’s offense is historically complicated and takes multiple seasons to master. And Mahomes won’t be working towards the same luxury car Alex was driving either; Andy has consistently been excellent at molding his West Coast philosophies around the strengths of his quarterback. So even the driver’s ed version of the Patrick Mahomes line of Andy Reid offensive vehicles should be more “exciting” to watch in that 400+ yard, 40+ point shootout sort of way that gets the TV networks with primetime NFL slots salivating (and, additionally, makes the NFL more comfortable with the concept of having to market a deep K.C. playoff run).
But expectations should still be at least a little managed going into 2018. Even with a year of seasoning on the sidelines and practice field, Andy’s likely going to reclaim a lot of the pre-snap control he had given to Alex over the last couple seasons. Mahomes has never played in an offense like this. He’s never even had to memorize and call plays as verbose as a typical West Coast/Andy Reid playcall, and Mahomes has expressed that the 20+ word playcalls have been at least a mild struggle.
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Which isn’t to say he can’t or won’t get it. He will. As far as I’m concerned, Mahomes has a very high football IQ. After all, you don’t ad lib as well as he does without an understanding of the chess match going on around you. But when Alex came to K.C. he was already seven years into his career and coming off a run in San Francisco where every possible roadblock to his progress was thrown in front of him. Mahomes steps into his first professional experience as an athlete in arguably the best position of any young quarterback in the league. The elite offensive personnel around him should help keep typical young QB mistakes from ballooning into a disaster season, but it also puts an amount of pressure on Mahomes to win and win NOW that is, frankly, unfair.
What we see from the Chiefs offense in 2018 will not be the fully realized potential of this squad. It’ll be exciting, and it’ll make for great television (possibly the most TV-friendly offense in the league), but it will be a seed, which is why I don’t want to be misinterpreted as negative here. I’m simply saying that we might have to wait for the Chiefs offense of, say, 2020 to see that fully unstoppable, Back to the Future self-lacing shoes, Elon-Musk-building-a-flamethrower-just-for-fun offense that elevates K.C. from just scary to mad scientist, movie villain territory.
In nearly every national TV segment involving Mahomes, Brett Favre’s name is dropped as a comparison. Which is fair given the impossibly strong arm, gunslinger make-up, Andy Reid influence, etc. But the only quarterback to make Favre’s style work was Favre, and he was far from consistent and without his one championship, he’s likely seen as the guy with all the stats but a legacy of playoff blunders. I fully expect Mahomes at his full potential to shed the Favre comparison and instead become the first Patrick Mahomes. A fully realized Patrick Mahomes will do things we’ve never seen quarterbacks do, and he’ll make it look easy.
But it has to start somewhere. Fortunately, with a receiving corps that includes Tyreek Hill, Travis Kelce, and Sammy Watkins (hell, throw Chris Conley in there too), this offense can still be prolific enough to win a lot of games running school yard “everyone go deep and Mahomes will do the rest” plays. And with backfield that’s, frankly, scary, the running game should remain a focal point and a strength. Just don’t lose your heads when Andy’s still dialing up screens and drags and so on. They’re integral to his offense regardless of the QB, and learning the quick, short stuff goes a long way to opening up the deep bomb.
So enjoy this season. But know it’s a beginning. Know we’re back in driver’s ed. Know that struggles don’t mean failure, and losing doesn’t mean bust. But also know that it’s just as possible that Mahomes is a natural behind the wheel, and that shiny new Rolls-Royce will come sooner than expected.
Just not this year.
Probably.