MAHOMES SHINES ON
Kansas City quarterback can do it all, beats Brady’s Buccaneers in a possible Super Bowl preview
Patrick Mahomes can do impressive things Tom Brady couldn’t do in his youth.
Sunday, for example, when he wasn’t completing touchdown passes to Tyreek Hill nearly 60 yards away, Mahomes ran for demoralizing first downs or zipped a wide variety of completions en route to 462 passing yards and three touchdowns without an interception.
So Mahomes, 25, showed he’s still the NFL’s top quarterback and frontrunner in the MVP race, on top of being football’s most entertaining player. And his counterpart, Brady? At 43, the old man can still zing difficult strikes.
Growing pains, not old bones, are Brady’s biggest challenge.
Brady and the rest of the Tampa Bay Bucs are trying to figure out how to mesh in their first year together, and their imprecision helped dig a 17-point hole and other problems that led to the team’s third defeat in four games — 27-24 — in a matchup that both clubs, to say nothing of NFL media partners, hope was a preview of the 55th Super Bowl come February, also in Tampa.
The Chiefs (10-1) of Andy Reid, coming off their first Super Bowl victory in 50 years, have now beaten four winning teams on the road — the Bucs (7-5), Raiders (6-5), Bills (8-3) and Ravens (6-5) — to stalk the unbeaten Steelers (10-0) in pursuit of the AFC’s top seed and lone playoff bye.
Kansas City led for nearly the whole game. Since the 40-32 loss to the Raiders in Week 5, Reid’s program has won six games in a row .
Mahomes and Hill, in their third year together as starters, gave future Chiefs opponents a terrifying refresher course on the perils of trying to play man defense versus Hill without a safety’s help and a menacing pass rush.
Hill, both explosive and shifty, went against fast, tall Carlton Davis, who had four interceptions this year.
From inside and outside alignments, Hill got behind him twice in the first quarter for touchdown receptions of 75 yards and 44 yards. He punctuated the latter with a back f lip into the end zone.
In the third quarter, as Davis trailed him in textbook position,
Hill snagged a pass Mahomes whistled above the cornerback’s helmet.
The 20-yard scoring strike, aside from improving the lead to 27-10, gave Hill a stat line akin to a f lag-football contest: 12 catches on 13 targets for 261 yards.
Mahomes had a very good game, but it was perhaps not his best career performance despite the season-high yardage total on a 75.5-percent completion rate.
A blindside hit dealt him his first lost fumble of the season. His errant throw to speedster Mecole Hardman, who still had a decent chance to catch the mid-range liner, likely cost the Chiefs a long touchdown.
The quarterback’s spectrum of playmaking was again vast.
In the second half, for example, Mahomes ran a keeper for 17 yards after cutting inside two perimeter defenders who went for his pick fake.
Also in the second half, he broke tendency to good effect. Rolling left instead of right — where he is lethal — he ran or passed for important gains.
His first touchdown pass to Hill, enabled by a clean pocket, was a deep liner on the mark. The second TD
pass was a parachute over the 6-foot-1 Davis.
Still Super Bowl contenders
The Bucs, while unlikely to catch the NFC-South leading Saints (9-2) after losing to them twice, seem still headed to the Super Bowl tournament. On paper, they hold the second of the NFC’s three wild cards; not one remaining opponent has a winning record.
An unusually late bye week should allow the Bucs to refine an offense that, despite overly streaky work, was sixth in points entering Sunday. Perhaps coach
Bruce Arians will adopt more motion action, a suggestion of former NFL quarterbacks Dan Orlovksy (ESPN) and Tony Romo (CBS). Will Arians heed a withering critique of Brady’s former teammate Tedy Bruschi that he’s too “stubborn” in his devotion to deep passes?
Brady outplayed Aaron Rodgers in an October rout of the NFC North-leading Packers (8-3). As with fellow old dude Drew Brees, 41, he still has a reasonable shot at returning to the Super Bowl.