By the end of January it has become a routine. A Super Bowl berth is on the line. Tony Romo, who sounds like a toddler, three Mountain Dews deep, on the phone. Patrick Mahomes led the Kansas City Chiefs to the AFC championship game.
“You can’t doubt No. 15,” Romo said after the Chiefs defeated the Buffalo Bills in the divisional round last weekend. Who is? At this point, having the AFC title game without Mahomes would be like showing the Oscars without Martin Scorsese.
It’s hard to even remember the time before Mahomes. Before the climax, throws and Houdini-like gameplay. Before the Chiefs – Andy Reid, Chris Jones, Travis Kelce, Mahomes – were the main characters on championship Sundays. In the 40 years before Mahomes became the Chiefs’ starting quarterback, KC was 4-15 in the playoffs. Since Mahomes took the job, they are 13-3 in the postseason, making the AFC Championship Game a record six straight.
Related: I was at the Lions’ last NFC title game in 1992. It didn’t end well
The Chiefs’ visit to Baltimore this weekend will be the team’s toughest title test yet. Even in the infamous “13 second” matchup with the Bills, Mahomes was on a level playing field. He had a star-studded receiving corps and could match up against another all-world offense.
This year it will be different. The Ravens have a great quarterback complemented by a fearsome defense. And the Chiefs are not a juggernaut. The defense is the team’s best unit these days, but KC’s offense has sputtered all season. By typical Reid and Mahomes standards, it was downright shabby. By midseason, everything outside of the Mahomes-to-Kelce connection in the passing game had reached a red alert level. They finished the regular season 11th in EPA per game, a measure of down-to-down efficiency. They scored on just 39% of their drives, which ranked them 10th in the league, the first time they fell outside the top three in the Mahomes era.
In some ways, this was part of the team’s long-term vision. Building a team that can maximize the present while remaining competitive for an entire decade requires a limbo dance, given the limitations of the salary cap. KC looked to the Brady-Belichick model in an attempt to continue their dynastic run. Over the past few seasons, they’ve poured resources into their defensive and offensive lines, figuring that Mahomes alone could take an under-baked group of offensive weapons to the next level. They chased castoffs and mid-round picks at the receiving spots under the assumption that anyone next to their quarterback could shine. They hoped to squeeze one last big year out of the 34-year-old Kelce — Mahomes’ favorite target — before his inevitable decline.
That team-building philosophy has partly paid off. The Chiefs have one of the fiercest (and youngest) defenses in the league. But it was also a season of frustration for Mahomes — and the worst season of his career. The offense was often one-dimensional, with a rotating cast of receivers, rookie Rashee Rice aside, disappearing like vampires who had smelled a whiff of garlic.
Heading into December, the Chiefs offense routinely remained stagnant. They looked well below championship standard. A receiver room that entered the season as the weakest group among all contenders led the league in declines. Kelce had a bad year because of his lofty standards. The surest thing behind Kelce was Isiah Pacheco and the running game.
The solution: dial up the offense and ditch the old bombs for a bigger, more hurtful style. Mahomes reduced some of his off-time artistry and shifted to a more calculated approach. Now that Kelce was the focal point of the opposing defense, he distributed the ball more even when his receivers were struggling. By the end of the regular season, he ranked 38th out of 41 eligible quarterbacks in average air meter. Patrick Mahomes – PATRICK MAHOMES – was coerced and embraced by playing like Jimmy Garoppolo.
Given these limitations, it’s remarkable that the Chiefs are back. It wasn’t Mahomes’ best season, but it was one of his most impressive.
Mahomes has had to carry the offense on his own for the first time in his career. When it matters most, he has raised his game. On third downs this season, he finished third in EPA per play. Are top two individual outings of the year? At home against the Miami Dolphins in the wild-card round and last week on the road in Buffalo. He needs another one turnover-worthy throw in the play-offs.
It’s a sign of Mahomes’ unique greatness that this all feels so normal. Like Michael Jordan in the mid-1990s, Mahomes’ excellence has become normal. We expect him to reach new heights every year, so if he’s only great, it feels like a disappointment. It’s one thing that he managed to lead this group to a division title. Leading them to wins over the Dolphins and Bills in the playoffs ranks among his greatest achievements.
If there was ever a year to eliminate the Chiefs before the AFC Championship Game, this was it. If there was a team, it was the Bills. They ultimately forced the Chiefs to play at their house in the postseason. And it meant nothing. By the time January rolled around, Playoff Mahomes had arrived, as always.
It wasn’t a one-man show, but it doesn’t take too many fingers to count the number of other quarterbacks who could have navigated the murky waters of this season. Even this season’s MVP candidates have plateaued in years when they didn’t have an A-list supporting cast.
Mahomes will have to conjure up something special to keep up with the Ravens and the Lamar Jackson freight train on Sunday. And he’ll face Mike Macdonald, Baltimore’s defensive wizard, who happens to employ a style that has caused Mahomes problems in the past.
If the Chiefs can ease the tension on Sunday in Baltimore, it will be another crowning moment for the quarterback. Mahomes has shown he can take a ho-hum offense and drag it within striking distance of the promised land.