Throughout the first nine seasons of Patrick Mahomes’ career, there have not been many games that he would like to completely forget, never rewatch, and never talk about again. There are obviously his two Super Bowl losses, both of which were heavily characterized by third-string offensive lines, countless wide receiver drops, and some horrendous defense against Tom Brady and Jalen Hurts.
But when Mahomes does incur a terrible game in the pocket during a regular-season matchup, he has a tendency to bounce back with a vengeance. Luckily for him, Andy Reid has been a head coach for nearly all of Mahomes’ 31 years on the planet and has seen it all. Not only that, he looks to have his WR1 back and hopefully a more consistent offensive line after weeks of injuries.
Even if the Chiefs aren’t addressing their wide receiver issues, and even if the Chiefs are not starting the same five offensive linemen (again), Mahomes’ history shows that his Week 8 matchup in Denver on Sunday will most likely be the type of “watch this” moment that puts the NFL back on notice, but there are some outliers between the lines.
What constitutes a “bad game”?
We all saw what Mahomes looked like on Sunday night in Seattle. He was throwing balls one to two yards short early in the game, leading to more third downs. He was unable to hit targets downfield, even throwing an ugly interception that could also have Xavier Worthy’s blame on it, depending on how you look at it.
In the end, Mahomes went 19-for-33 (57.6%) for only 165 yards (5.0 yards per attempt), with zero touchdowns and one interception, all totaling up to a passer rating of 58.3—the fifth-worst of his regular-season career. With these stats and information, there are always going to be variables that Mahomes simply can’t predict or do anything about—drops, offensive line breaking down, injuries—but those will be present in every game. For that reason, they won’t be factors in predicting Denver’s stat line. The only thing that matters, other than his performances, is whether he was taken out of the game early with an injury, like when he dislocated his kneecap in the famed QB sneak against Denver in Week 7 of 2019.
So where does the loss in Seattle rank? Mahomes’ 19 completions Sunday night were the sixth-fewest in his career, and his completion percentage (57.6%) didn’t even crack the top 20 of his worst games. His 165 yards through the air were among his worst, though: fourth-fewest of any game where he’s played 100% of the snaps. Also, zero-touchdown games through the air are not super uncommon; this being the 15th time in his career, with all but one of those 15 also pairing with (at least) one interception.
But Mahomes is also a solid runner, especially when he’s scrambling through the pocket, so perhaps adding his rushing stats might help alleviate how bad the Seattle game really was, right? Well, it won’t, ’cause he only rushed for 14 yards on two attempts (7 yards per carry), one of his worst performances over the past few years.
All in all, Mahomes’ SNF performance in Seattle was nothing to write home about, but he has had worse, and what’s more important to him is how he comes out in the game afterward.
Bill Belichick mindset: On to the next game...
One thing Mahomes and Reid have in common is their NFL-great mindsets. It’s always “on to the next game,” it’s always “next man up,” and it’s always something that can get better, even if it’s a perfect game. That type of mindset is what former Patriots head coach Bill Belichick was known for, especially because of how bluntly he used to express it at the postgame podium. But Mahomes and Reid are still living in that world, while Belichick is busy coaching college and watching cheerleader competitions.
Because of that, it’s always going to be about the next game after a bad loss or a terrifyingly bad performance like Mahomes had on Sunday Night Football. That game, which saw one of his worst stat lines in a road game, could be the spark, like the Christmas game against the Raiders, leading to six straight wins and a Super Bowl championship. It could also lead to a losing streak that the Chiefs don’t often see with a healthy Mahomes under center. Either way, the history of Mahomes shows it’s more likely the former than the latter.
In the four games in which Mahomes had a lower passer rating than 58.3, he played every offensive snap of the game. Those games were Week 13’s win vs. Denver in 2021, Week 9’s loss at Buffalo last season, Week 7’s win at San Francisco in 2024, and last year’s embarrassing home loss to Houston right before his season-ending injury.
Worst game of his career, nail in the coffin the next week
Mahomes' worst of all those games, against Houston, saw him go 14-for-33 for 160 yards with an 0-3 touchdown-to-interception ratio. His passer rating was 19.8 (!!!), the fourth-worst in the league since the start of last season, just ahead of Andy Dalton (0.0), Max Brosmer (5.8), and Shedeur Sanders (13.5)—all quarterbacks who should never be on the same list as Mahomes.
He proved himself as a runner in that game, though, perhaps leading to the overuse of his legs and the following week’s leg injury, with 59 yards rushing, which nearly led both teams by the end of the game.
Everybody knows what happened the next week at home against the Chargers, losing 16-13 but also injuring his ACL and LCL to send him to surgery and end his season, even throwing his possibility to start the 2026 season into unknown territory. Adding insult to injury, literally, is the fact that Mahomes was not having a great game before the injury anyway.
In that divisional game, much like Sunday’s, he was only 16-for-28 (57.1%) with an interception and threw for no touchdowns, his second straight game doing so—only the third time in his career that’s happened before this past week. One of the main reasons Mahomes was injured was the lack of consistency on the offensive line (again), but Rashee Rice was healthy, Xavier Worthy was on the field, and Travis Kelce and Tyquan Thornton were catching passes...there was still a chance to make the playoffs, but Mahomes wasn’t able to step up and get them close.
Returning to form after San Francisco
The second-worst passer rating of Mahomes’ career came in a 10-point victory, believe it or not, beating San Francisco in its own stadium 28-18 back in October of 2024. In that game, Ricky Pearsall made his first NFL reception just 50 days after suffering a gunshot wound, and Mahomes went 16-for-27 (59.3%) for only 154 yards and two interceptions.
The week after that, the Chiefs traveled to Nevada to play the Raiders. Kelce had 12 targets, four more than Worthy in second place, but both caught a touchdown, and the Chiefs looked like their former selves rather than a shell of them. With that said, the Chiefs’ running back room was scarcer than scarce, with only Kareem Hunt (21) and Carson Steele (two) attempting a rush alongside Mahomes (six).
The biggest difference here is the addition of Kenneth Walker III, who will surely have a better game than he did in his old homestead in Seattle and will surely have a better game than Kansas City’s leading rusher in that victory over Vegas two seasons ago. In that Week 8 matchup, Hunt rushed 21 times for less than 60 yards, which Walker III would have laughed at before this past Sunday night. Before that vicious “revenge game,” Walker’s lowest yardage with 21 or more attempts was 83 yards back in November of 2024 for Seattle, and so far this season, he has already rushed for more than Hunt’s total in one single play.
So the difference-maker is there for Mahomes to have a better game in Denver, but that’s not all. In that game against Vegas, the Chiefs’ leading receivers were Kelce and Worthy, two players still obviously needed for Mahomes to succeed, but other than that, he was throwing to the likes of Justin Watson, a newly acquired DeAndre Hopkins, Samaje Perine, Mecole Hardman, and Jody Fortson. Even if Rice is on the field despite not being 100%, that is a much worse receiving corps than Kansas City will put on the field this Sunday...right?
Everything is set up for Mahomes to at least trend upward compared to last week’s loss, as well as his two matchups in 2024 that both, miraculously, ended in victories despite one of them being his second-worst passer rating since leaving college.
One bad loss after another...
His third-worst passer rating belonged to Buffalo in its now-retired stadium back in November of last year, losing 28-21 while putting up the worst completion percentage of his career at the time (44.1%), with a respectable 250 yards and an interception with zero touchdowns to even it all out. In that game, he felt the pressure despite having four of his five starting linemen in the game, with Kingsley Suamataia still figuring out where he worked best.
It wasn’t his worst game, and it wasn’t even a terrible game from an objective standpoint, but his next matchup, in Denver coming out of the bye, didn’t provide the same bounce-back that was expected against a divisional opponent. The 22-19 loss was not solely on Mahomes’ shoulders, though, as this was the prime evidence for why Walker III was necessary for Kansas City to survive: RPO success.
Nobody took the Chiefs’ running back room seriously, Mahomes was often leading the team in rushing, and Kelce was still the No. 1 receiver due to Worthy’s slow regression. For that reason, the Chiefs simply could not get much done on any long-distance third downs, leaving them with two straight three-and-outs to end their final two drives of the game.
The Broncos needed only one touchdown to beat the Chiefs in this game, a game where Mahomes found a way to throw for 276 yards on 29-of-45 passing (64.4%), with a touchdown to Kelce pairing evenly with a bad interception to start the third quarter. It should be mentioned, though, that Mahomes had two separate interceptions called back by penalties, so perhaps the Chiefs were lucky to only leave with a three-point loss.
Despite throwing 14 more completions and boosting his rating by more than 20 points from the game before, the team still lost to Denver, which could happen this upcoming Sunday afternoon. If that were to happen, then the Chiefs would essentially be in a dogfight for the AFC West for the rest of the season, while a win at Mile High would firmly plant them atop the division for weeks, maybe even until the playoffs.
Early Mahomes, another easy Raiders win
Once again, the Chiefs had a downer of a game against Denver, only for them to win and then continue the divisional dominance the next week against Las Vegas. The only difference? This time was way back in Mahomes’ fifth season (2021), when he completed only 51.7% of his passes (fifth-worst) and somehow found a way to win.
In that game, he didn’t throw a touchdown, just like in Seattle, and he threw an interception...also just like in Seattle. Luckily for him, he still had the core of Tyreek Hill and Kelce, along with Demarcus Robinson and Byron Pringle—both still in their primes. So even after one of his worst games to date, Mahomes and company were still able to put it together the next week with a 48-9 rout of the Raiders.
It’s hard to compare this upcoming match against Denver and those high-flying days of Mahomes and Kansas City, but the lack of receiver talent today juxtaposed with then should almost disqualify it from being a true comparison. Not only was the receiver room miles above today’s, but Mahomes probably had the best starting line of his career that next week, with a line consisting of Joe Thuney, a young Trey Smith, and Creed Humphrey, as well as “prime” Orlando Brown Jr.
The Chiefs could easily find a way to blow out the Broncos again, maybe even to the tune of their blowout win over Vegas five years ago, but if they do so, it will have to be off the back of Mahomes in sticky situations once again. Without a deep threat like Tyquan Thornton and without a consistent offensive line, there might not be the same type of success as then.
Losses not related to stats
Not all losses are made equally, just like not all wins are made equally. Terrible games from QBs don’t always lead to losses (as we’ve already seen in this article), and great games don’t always lead to wins (Google “Rams vs. Chiefs 11/19/18”). So it’s only fair to list other games that Mahomes lost badly, but not necessarily because of himself.
For starters, the Chiefs have scored just three points twice during the Mahomes era, with the other coming back in October of 2021 against Tennessee. In that game, he got picked off throwing to Josh Gordon (remember how fun that experiment was?), he was sacked and forced to fumble by then-third-year DT Jeffery Simmons, and, to put the cherry on top...Butker missed a 57-yard field goal.
That was also the game where Chad Henne was forced to come in late after the game was already over and Mahomes had surely taken enough damage. The very next week, the Chiefs hosted the New York Giants, and Mahomes completed nine more passes (29), threw for 69 more yards, and tossed one more touchdown. That 20-17 victory against New York’s Daniel Jones and Kadarius Toney—both completed at least one pass for the Giants—started an eight-game win streak that only ended against Cincinnati in Week 17.
Long before that game, there was the infamous 19-13 loss to the Jacoby Brissett-led Indianapolis Colts, who relied heavily on current Hall of Famer Adam Vinatieri to nail four field goals. Mahomes had 321 passing yards and 17 rushing yards to go along with a touchdown through the air, all of which wasn’t enough thanks to fumbles by LeSean McCoy, along with multiple third- and fourth-down stops by Indy’s defense.
The next week would end in a loss as well, this time to Houston by a score of 31-24, but again, Mahomes did as much as he could. He went 19-for-35 for 273 yards and three touchdowns with a costly pick on a long ball to Pringle, all of which put them in positions to win the game against the Deshaun Watson-led Texans. But after a strip-sack fumble by Charles Omenihu and a missed field goal by Butker, Mahomes was looking up at Houston for the rest of the game.
Can Mahomes bounce back against Denver?
Either way you cut it, Mahomes has been hit or miss when it comes to games after extremely bad losses and uniquely bad performances. Whether it’s the fault of Brett Veach’s drafting, Coach Reid’s playbook, Steve Spagnuolo’s defensive strategy, Eric Bieniemy’s scheming, bad drops by receivers, inconsistent defense, or even officiating, there are plenty of variables to these games and his performances.
What matters now is whether or not Mahomes, hopefully with a full arsenal at receiver, can pull off one of those classic games where he looks like the best player in the league or if he’s going to do what he has done more recently, which is drift back toward bad habits for two weeks in a row. With Denver’s defense, it’s going to be up in the air, but with the way Mahomes has succeeded so far with Walker III, there is plenty more upside to this matchup than there was for many of Mahomes’ wins in previous post-loss situations.
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