It’s time to begin our Kansas City Chiefs offseason roster evaluation, and we begin at quarterback, the most important position of all.
Each offseason, we follow in the footsteps of our favorite team and evaluate the roster, position by position. Given the Super Bowl win and the ensuing hysteria, we’re doing so a bit later than ever this year. This is is a schedule we could get used to.
On Monday, we’re taking a closer look at quarterbacks and continuing for the next two weeks. We’ll be asking three primary questions in the series: 1.) What we thought would happen?, 2.) What actually happened?, and 3.) What have we learned going forward?
What we thought would happen at quarterback?
The Chiefs entered 2019 with the reigning NFL MVP, Patrick Mahomes. Coming off a year in which Mahomes became just the second player in league history to pass for 5,000 yards and 50 touchdowns, the expectations were through the roof for the 24-year-old from Texas Tech.
The consensus was that, while either 5,000 passing yards or 50 touchdowns was within reach for Mahomes, it was impractical to expect both again.
However, the combination of Mahomes, head coach Andy Reid, and a slew of playmakers at their disposal meant the sky was the limit. Even the most tepid of floor expectations were 4,000+ passing yards and 40 touchdowns, which would put any signal caller in the Pro Bowl.
Numbers aside, the intangible expectation was that Mahomes would bring elite leadership, consistency, and championship-caliber play to the most important position in all of professional sports. In his 2018 season, Mahomes surprised many with his consistency, throwing just 12 interceptions. The team never scored fewer than 26 points.
There were whispers of concern about the potential for distraction from Mahomes’ sudden influx of endorsements in 2019, as he made notable deals with Adidas, Hy-Vee, Oakley, Hunt’s Ketchup among others. Possibly the most controversial off-season endorsement was his selection for the 2019 Madden cover, a dubious distinction that has often spelled disaster for the player. Despite all the fanfare and commercial shoots and being saddled with “the Madden Curse,” Mahomes handled it all with veteran savvy.
Behind Mahomes, the Chiefs prepared to enter training camp in 2019 with 34-year-old backup Chad Henne and allow newcomers Chase Litton and Kyle Shurmur to fight for a shot as a developmental quarterback.
Through all of training camp in 2019, the resounding narrative was that somehow, Mahomes looked even better than he did in 2018. He was throwing darts all over the field, no-look passes every day, and it appeared that we were in for a treat. Knowing that the bird in the bush had become the bird in the hand, head coach Andy Reid and offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy had an entire offseason to come up with “Pat Plays,” so Chiefs Kingdom awaited what would come.
What actually happened?
Mahomes, of course, dazzled in the preseason. Unfortunately, Henne suffered a broken ankle in the preseason game against San Francisco, paving the way for the Chiefs to ink Matt Moore in late August. The Chiefs made the decision to roster Henne on final cut-down day, so that they could return him from IR later in the year, which they indeed did. The rookie Shurmur played well enough to beat out Litton for a spot on the Chiefs’ practice squad.
When the Chiefs opened the year on the road at Jacksonville, things were a little shaky on the back end with Moore learning the playbook as quickly as possible. But you’ve got the MVP, right?
The Chiefs got a scare in the 2nd quarter when Mahomes came up limping after being gang-tackled at the Jacksonville 7-yard-line. Though he returned to that game, the ankle was heavily taped and it was evident that the injury was impeding Mahomes’ play in the coming weeks.
It didn’t help that Mahomes’ top target, wide receiver Tyreek Hill, and his Pro Bowl left tackle. Eric Fisher, were both knocked out for extended periods of time in the opening half of the season. Other injuries piled up as well, but it rarely affected things in the win-loss column—where it mattered most. However, it was evident on a week-to-week basis that Reid and offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy were handcuffed with so many key players banged up.
Everything froze at Denver in Week 7 when, on national television, Mahomes lay motionless on the ground after picking up a first down on a 4th-down sneak. The speed in which Rick Burkholder and the Chiefs’ medical staff responded cannot be forgotten in this. After having his dislocated knee reset right there on the field, the tension on all of Mahomes’ ligaments was relieved in a matter of moments.
Thankfully, we’ll never know what further damage was avoided that night, but with the injury Mahomes was still out for several more weeks. At the time of his departure, the Chiefs quarterback had thrown for 15 TD and just one INT on the season.
Enter Matt Moore. Moore took the helm in the Broncos game, and with the help of a dominating defensive effort, he led the Chiefs to a convincing victory. We learned in the days after that first-team receivers had never caught passes from the 35-year-old Moore, even in practice, making the win in Denver that much more remarkable.
Mahomes would miss the next two games, both home games against NFC North opponents that would eventually be playoff teams. Moore and the Chiefs took Green Bay down to the wire on Sunday Night Football, and he then led the Chiefs to an impressive win against the Vikings in the following week.
After it was all said and done, Moore exceeded any expectation, making a couple of highlight passes in each game and leaving the Chiefs feeling pretty comfortable while their star quarterback healed up on the bench.
Mahomes would return in Week 10 against Tennessee, throwing for a remarkable 446 yards. The Titans managed to pull out a win that day, but the loss galvanized the Chiefs into another level of grit in their pursuit of a championship. That would be the last game the Chiefs would lose.
The blessing in disguise was that, in his recovery from the knee injury, Mahomes’ lingering ankle injury was also allowed to heal. After all the injuries earlier in the year, the team got healthy at the right time and hit a hot streak when it mattered most. Fisher returned the game after Mahomes did, and the Chiefs ripped off a nine-game winning streak en route to a Super Bowl Championship.
Mahomes finished the 2019 regular season with 4,031 yards, 26 touchdowns and 5 interceptions. He chipped in another 901 yards, 10 touchdowns in 3 playoff games, while throwing just 2 interceptions (both in the Super Bowl).
Here’s what resonated with Mahomes’ 2019 performance: In the season’s final game, Mahomes played what, for him, was a statistically average game. He had his lowest completion percentage (61.9%) since the Raiders game in Week 13, threw his first multi-interception game since Week 11 in 2018 (the 54-51 barn burner vs. the Rams), and yet when it was all said and done, he was still the Super Bowl MVP after orchestrating a 4th quarter comeback in which the team was down 10 points with under 7 minutes to play.
Even a statistically sub-par game from Mahomes was enough to defeat the best the rest of the league had to offer.
What we learned?
In 2018 we learned that Kansas City has a transcendent talent at quarterback in Patrick Mahomes. We learned that when he’s at his best, an unstoppable force, a generational talent.
What we learned in 2019 is that even when he’s not at his best, he’s still elite. Mahomes is also so remarkably consistent that he is truly matchup-proof. It would seem to be an exaggeration to say that any player is incapable of having a bad game. But we still just haven’t seen it. Mahomes has now suited up for the Chiefs in 36 games that have mattered, and he has had the team in position to win every. single. one.
After 5,000 and 50, Mahomes still had doubters. They said he wouldn’t be able to win without Kareem Hunt. They said the Madden Curse would get him. They questioned his ability to perform when opponents had a year’s worth of game film on him, for crying out loud.
Moving forward, the expectation has to be that Mahomes continues to carry himself with his rare maturity, staying out of trouble off the field, and not losing his contagious passion for the game. Those are the only things that could ever deter his path to becoming a Hall of Fame player. The stats and the wins will come if he keeps doing what he’s doing.
It would of course help for the team to prioritize the offensive line in the long haul, but that’s another topic for another day. The fact is, there is no single player in the NFL with a higher bar right now than Mahomes. There is no other ladder for him to climb now except longevity. He’s played in a Pro Bowl; he’s won the MVP and the Super Bowl MVP. He’s on top of the world.
The question now is how he responds when every opponent meets the Chiefs with the mindset that they are playing the Super Bowl Champions. Mahomes has met every other question with a “Yes, I can,” so there’s not one reason to think that he will not continue to meet every expectation with merit.
Behind him on the depth chart, there are more questions than answers. Soon Mahomes will sign on the dotted line and become the highest-paid football player in league history, leaving little cap room for another player at the same position. But the expectation has to be that the team will not leave themselves completely exposed should Mahomes have to miss a couple games, like he did in 2019. When you are so invested into winning Super Bowls right now, you should be insured to be able to win without your best player.
The team already has a quarterback whisperer in Reid. Mahomes’ backup cannot be a 40-year-old mentor who by the way, can’t really play football anymore. His backup cannot be an undrafted free agent with no experience. Brett Veach and Andy Reid should be charged with the responsibility of prioritizing the position so that all the hard work and preparation for planning to win multiple Super Bowls are not promptly cut short due to one injury.
The team may indeed employ Henne or Moore in 2020, but they won’t keep both. Eventually they will turn to the practice of drafting and developing a young backup, and possibly flipping him for draft picks after a few years.
Chiefs fans are not accustomed to this. We are used to finding someone else’s leftovers and hoping to squeeze another season or two out of them. Chiefs fans can now embrace the peace that comes with “knowing who your QB is next year, and the year after that, and the year after that,” but here we are, on top of the mountain. The challenge now is to stay here.