Patrick Mahomes has high praise for Chiefs offensive line vs. Bills

Patrick Mahomes had high praise for the Chiefs offensive line against the Bills.

It’s not surprising that the Kansas City Chiefs put away the Buffalo Bills on Monday evening. It was the way they did it that stood out to so many.

Instead of relying on the arm of Patrick Mahomes and the speed and hands of Tyreek Hill and Travis Kelce, the Chiefs put up an incredible 245 yards rushing on the night on 44 total carries. It was the first time that Mahomes had ever watched his offense run for more yards than they passed for—and it was all behind a makeshift line.

For those who didn’t watch the game, the Chiefs relied on three new starters for the game. Daniel Kilgore replaced Austin Reiter before the game ever started, while Mike Remmers started at left guard. However, Remmers then shifted to right tackle before the first quarter was over, because Mitchell Schwartz headed to the locker room with back pain. From there, Nick Allegretti stepped into the left guard role, which meant Eric Fisher and Andrew Wylie were the only holdovers from last week’s game.

After the game, Mahomes had high praise for the offensive line in particular. After the previous week in which the Chiefs allowed the Las Vegas Raiders to generate good pressure with only three or four linemen, the offensive front went to work against the Bills.

"“I think the o-line and those guys really took it personally upon themselves, the light box that we’d be facing and the pressure that was given up last week, they took that personally this week and you saw it today,” said Mahomes to reporters after the win over the Bills. “They gave good holes for Clyde [Edwards-Helaire] to run through. We had to shuffle those guys around and the guys stepped up and Clyde really hit it and finished runs well.”"

Mahomes was right to also praise Edwards-Helaire, who put up a career high 161 rushing yards on 26 carries. The rookie running back enjoyed his finest output since the season-opening win over the Houston Texans and re-entered the Offensive Rookie of the Year race with his game in Week 6.

Mahomes also went on to praise the work of the front office and coaching staff to have players to ready to step in at a moment’s notice along the offensive line. Their preparation showed on Monday night and Mahomes was all the safer for it.

"“I thought they did a tremendous job,” said Mahomes. “Not only Nick coming in and stepping up and playing his tail off, really blocking well in the run game and the pass game, but Remmers, who just came in this last week at guard and moving to tackle where Schwartz is usually at and really doing a great job there.“Those guys are really prepared well. Veach does a good job of getting a lot of great guys in that room, and coach Heck coaches them up really well. I thought they did a tremendous job. Hopefully we can get Mitch back here quickly but I’m proud of those guys and have full trust in those guys going forward.”"

The Chiefs haven’t set out any sort of expectations on Schwartz’s back injury just yet but at least they can know that their backups were prepared well enough to hold down the fort while he’s gone. The Chiefs have experienced options and Mahomes has learned he can trust them, too.