Sam McDowell: On a night to praise Chiefs' Patrick Mahomes, there's still one thing he can improve
Published in Football
NEW ORLEANS — In the chaos that is Super Bowl media night, the onslaught of questions for Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes tilted to a debate that you might see on sports talk shows, or, heck, mixed into group chats among longtime friends.
Can you be the greatest quarterback ever?
“I’m trying to be the greatest Patrick Mahomes I can be,” he replied without missing a beat.
A fine answer, and then he moved on.
But let’s stay behind on that topic for a moment, even if only for a moment. There are two things already clear as the Chiefs prepare to face the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl LIX here in New Orleans.
1. Mahomes is in the midst of the best six-year run any quarterback has ever enjoyed.
2. There’s never been a better NFL resume for a 29-year-old quarterback.
The Chiefs are the first team in NFL history to reach this stage five times in a six-season span. As for the support of the second item: Mahomes has thrown for 18 more playoff touchdowns and 2,200 more postseason passing yards than any under-30 quarterback in NFL history. It’s not close.
Those are just a couple of other ways to illustrate the obvious. Patrick Mahomes is running pretty hot.
So maybe I should whisper the next part — and maybe it’s an odd fit given all the praise that accompanies these opening night circuses — because it illustrates the imperfections: Mahomes has not been particularly great early in Super Bowls.
A three-time Super Bowl MVP, that is, has not been particularly great early in Super Bowls. It’s kind of an absurd sentence, and you might consider this nitpicking considering three of those four games turned out just fine for Kansas City.
But Mahomes’ path to three championships (so far) follows a bread-crumb trail of late-game heroics, not dominant outings against the best the NFC has to offer. The Chiefs trailed by double digits in all three of their title-game victories of the Mahomes era.
All three.
He produces magic late in games. That’s not strictly anecdotal, but evidenced. Mahomes has a 100.3 passer rating in the fourth quarter and overtime of his four appearances in the Super Bowl. In the first three quarters, when he’s produced only two touchdowns yet three interceptions, his passer rating is 74.2.
(In the playoffs overall, in case you were wondering, his 108.9 passer rating in fourth quarters and overtimes is third all time among the 48 quarterbacks with at least 50 passing attempts.)
It’s worked. It’s (somehow) a winning formula.
But this year’s Eagles might be the team against which you would least like to test the formula — the team you would like to play good offensive football against for, gasp, the first three quarters of the game.
Why? It only amplifies the impact of their best strengths.
Run, run, run.
The Eagles run the ball 55.7% of the time, 3% more frequently than any team in the league. The quarterback can run. The running back, Saquon Barkley, is an overwhelming favorite to win the NFL’s offensive player of the year award after becoming the ninth player, ever, to top 2,000 rushing yards in a season.
It’s harder to play catch-up when the clock is constantly sprinting toward the finish. That’s probably a bit obvious. But there’s a spot when the Eagles’ running game actually becomes even better:
When they have a two-possession lead — as in, the very lead that every opponent has managed to carve out against Mahomes in Super Bowls.
Barkley ran the ball 77 times with at least a two-possession (nine-plus points) advantage this year. He averaged 7.2 yards per carry in those spots, best in football. Hurts dropped back to throw it only 30 times in that scenario. The most run-heavy team in the league becomes even more run-heavy in those spots, in other words.
Look, Mahomes is terrific when his back is against the wall. Even that word — terrific — doesn’t do it justice. The best quarterback in football becomes even better. When he’s done with this job, 10 or 15 years from now, the comebacks will lead his biography.
So this isn’t at all suggesting coming back from two possessions would be impossible — he’s shown us that it’s not only possible, but even statistically likely.
It’s to suggest that doing so against this opponent would be difficult. There are reasons the Eagles are in the Super Bowl, and the two primary ones line up with protecting leads. They run the ball efficiently on offense and their passing defense is ranked No. 1 in football.
Those are two strengths you tend to lean on when you’re protecting a lead.
“We’ve played a lot of good teams in the Super Bowls (and) a lot of good defenses. And we’ve done a good job of kind of figuring it out,” Mahomes said. “But if we can start fast, obviously, it would help out and make it to where we don’t have to necessarily have a fourth-quarter comeback every time.”
A ever-so-brief pause followed that answer.
“However you find a way to win, you find a way to get a win.”
Both are true. But the the latter — finding a way to win — gets a little easier with the former.
A good place to start.
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