AFC West round table: Can Patrick Mahomes maintain his MVP success?

We polled the FanSided experts from our AFC West rivals to get an outside perspective on the Chiefs. Today’s subject: Can Patrick Mahomes keep it going?

With the dust largely settled on the offseason, it’s possible to get a fairly decent read on how teams will likely look entering the season. Sure, some players will change teams. Injuries will occur. Surprises will emerge. But we can likely tell at this point what the collection of talent each team will enter the season will resemble.

Given the myriad changes for the Kansas City Chiefs in the last couple months, it made sense for us to get some outside perspective on things. It’s easy to applaud the changes from the inside, to believe the best about each and every import, but what are those on the outside saying about the Chiefs?

All this week, we’ve asked FanSided’s experts from the Chiefs’ rivals in the AFC West to weigh in on a handful of questions in order to get a better read on the team. Some answers will surprise you. Others will confirm what you believed all along. Let’s start with the most important player of all.

Patrick Mahomes won the MVP last year in what was essentially a rookie year. From your perspective, what’s the read on Mahomes’s greatness? Is there a sense he’s a generational talent? A one-year wonder? Is there any confidence that he’s vulnerable with a year of tape for defensive coordinators? Is the opposite true, that it’s that much more difficult because he’ll have a year under his belt?

Sayre Bedinger (Broncos): From the Broncos’ perspective, we’re approaching Mahomes as though he’s going to be the best player in the NFL for the foreseeable future—meaning every move we make at this point is with that in mind. We’re competing with the best player in the NFL.

There has been zero talk that Mahomes is a one-year wonder among Broncos Country. The only thing fans have been focused on is, what are we going to do to beat this guy? That’s why everyone’s excited about having Drew Lock. He wasn’t the 10th overall pick like Mahomes was, but most Broncos fans believe Lock gives them a chance to compete.

Can Mahomes be worse than last year? Statistically, sure, but that doesn’t mean he’s not going to have the same impact on games. He doesn’t have to throw 50 touchdowns to have an MVP impact on games.

Travis Wakeman (Chargers): I hear a lot of people saying the things you alluded to—that he’s a one-year wonder or that defensive coordinators will figure him out and expose him. I completely disagree. You can’t teach the kind of arm talent that he has, and I think the Chiefs have what will be one of the game’s best quarterbacks for the next decade.

Brad Weiss (Raiders): Mahomes absolutely took the NFL by storm last season, throwing for over 5,000 yards and 50 touchdowns. Any time a first year starter wins NFL MVP honors, it is going to be hard to duplicate. However, even from a Raiders perspective, you have to think he is a generational talent. There is a reason Kansas City got rid of a guy who was leading them to AFC West titles on a yearly basis.

Sure, defensive coordinators should have more tape on him, but he has the arm to fit the ball into windows that other QBs do not even try to. The division has done a nice job adding quality defensive backs over the last two offseasons, and Mahomes is a big reason why. At this point, he is at least a top-3 quarterback in this league, and it is a bit scary to see what kind of encore he will have in 2019.

[Note: Our appreciation goes out to Sayre Bedinger of Predominantly Orange (Denver Broncos), Brad Weiss of Just Blog Baby (Oakland Raiders), and Travis Wakeman of Bolt Beat (L.A. Chargers) for taking the time to answer our inquiries.]