The Kansas City Chiefs ended up with a first round bye in the playoffs, and now Patrick Mahomes has everything he needs to win a Super Bowl.
The road map to get there may not have gone as planned, but as the final seconds of the Kansas City Chiefs regular season finale against the Los Angeles Chargers ticked away, the team had secured the first-round bye that most fans anticipated when the 2019 season began.
The Chiefs ended up needing an unexpected win by the Miami Dolphins over the New England Patriots in Foxborough to make it happen, but the end result is still that the Chiefs will have next week off to rest and recover for a home playoff game in the divisional round. While it may not be home field advantage throughout the playoffs, the Chiefs have a significantly easier path to the Super Bowl than they did a week ago. Now it’s up to quarterback Patrick Mahomes to lead this team to the promised land.
The NFL is known as the ultimate team game. One player can’t win a game—let alone a championship—on his own. However, there have been special quarterbacks throughout the league’s history that have been able to lead their team to a Super Bowl. When the 2019 season kicked off, Chiefs fans were 100% confident that they had that type of quarterback in Patrick Mahomes, who was coming off not only a MVP season, but THE best first season as a starting quarterback in the history of the NFL. The question was not if Mahomes was good enough to lead the Chiefs to a Super Bowl. Rather, it was if the Chiefs had a good enough team around him to make that possible.
The biggest question was the defense. In Mahomes first season as the starter the defense simply wasn’t good enough. Former defensive coordinator Bob Sutton‘s defense gave up way too many points and failed to make in game adjustments time and time again. Despite that, the Chiefs were still just one Dee Ford offsides call away from making the Super Bowl. If the remade defense under new coordinator Steve Spagnuolo could just make the Chiefs defense average, they should be destined for greatness with an offense this explosive.
The good news for Chiefs fans is that the defense has been even better than almost anyone hoped. I wrote just last week that this team now has a top ten defense. However, the downside is that the offense simply hasn’t been able to replicate the remarkable production of last season. A large part of that, at least through the first half of the season, was because of all the injuries on offense. Tyreek Hill missed time. Eric Fisher missed time. Even Patrick Mahomes missed games with a knee injury.
“They just need time to get healthy and find a rhythm,” we all told ourselves.
The Chiefs are still one of the better offenses in the NFL. As I type this late Sunday afternoon, it looks like the Chiefs will finish the year in the top five in the NFL in both yards and points per game. They have a very good offense. It just hasn’t been able to reach the staggering levels of last season. That having been said, because of the improvements on defense, this team still has a great chance to make a Super Bowl run. They just need Patrick Mahomes to be the special player we all believe him to be.
Last season Mahomes was just flat out ridiculous. Here’s a quick reminder of the numbers he put up in his breakout MVP season.
- 66.0% completions
- 8.8 yards per attempt
- 5,097 yards
- 50 touchdowns
- 12 interceptions
This season Mahomes played a few less games because of his injury but still put up solid numbers.
- 65.9% completions
- 8.3 yards per attempt
- 4,031 yards
- 26 touchdowns
- 5 interceptions
If he had played all season he probably hits 30 touchdowns and over 4,500 yards. That’s still one of the best quarterback lines in the league this season and most teams in the league would kill to enter the playoffs with a quarterback that puts up those numbers.
The problem is that Mahomes has put up very average numbers down the stretch of the season. Over the last six games of the season Mahomes has put up the following numbers.
- 65.3% completions
- 7.3 yards per attempt
- 234.2 yards per game
- 8 touchdowns
- 3 interceptions
Those numbers are… fine? I mean they aren’t horrible numbers, but they aren’t the numbers of a MVP that is going to carry his team to a Super Bowl either. While I 100% believe the Chiefs have a team that can win the Super Bowl this season, they need special Patrick Mahomes, not a guy that puts up “fine” numbers like he has over the final six games of the season.
The good news is we do still see special Mahomes multiple times per game. Against the Chargers, he had back to back great throws to Mecole Hardman and Demarcus Robinson on a touchdown drive before halftime. Late in the game, when the Chargers had cut the lead to 3 points, he hit Tyreek Hill on a beautiful deep ball for 47 yards. The problem is that on the other 22 passing plays he was 13 of 22 for just 73 yards. That’s just 5.6 yards per completion on his other 13 passes in this game.
The Chiefs still managed to win all six of those games to end the season because of the improved play of the defense. During that same six game stretch they have given up only 11.5 points per game with 10 interceptions and 15 sacks. As I type this the Chiefs are a lock to finish in the top ten defenses in the NFL in points allowed with just 19.2 points per game on the season. That alone should give K.C. fans hope for the playoffs. When you add in the fact that they have a chance to finish in the top ten in interceptions and sacks, too, there is even more reason to believe.
Sunday was a great day for the Chiefs and for Chiefs fans. The Chiefs got a 10-point win over the rival Chargers and locked up a first-round bye thanks to the Dolphins upsetting the Patriots. The defense has come around like we hoped that it would. Damien Williams looks like a real threat in the running game again. This team is set up to make a Super Bowl run.
We wanted the team around Patrick Mahomes to be good enough to help their star quarterback get this team to the promised land. It looks like the team around him is good enough to get the job done. They just need their superstar quarterback to play like the superstar we know he is. I still believe he will. How about you?