MAN ON A MISSION
After losing to Patriots in last year’s playoffs, Mahomes determined not to let it happen again
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Within three days of the Super Bowl last February, Patrick Mahomes returned home to Tyler and met with Bobby Stroupe, a confidant who had served as his personal trainer since fourth grade. Mahomes had been traveling the banquet circuit, accepting his Most Valuable Player Award at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta and completing all the glad-handing obligations that came with it. Once home, Mahomes deemed the celebration over.
At Stroupe’s Athlete Performance Enhancement Center, Mahomes did not discuss his MVP, never mentioned his 50 touchdown passes or 5,000 yards. He only talked about what came next. He wanted to design an offseason plan spun from a simple objective.
“There’s only one goal,” Mahomes told Stroupe. “And it’s the Super Bowl.”
“He was (mad) about losing to the Patriots, period,” Stroupe said this week in a telephone interview. “That was it. We didn’t hold some special dinner. It was work, man. He’s got a goal. He feels like they got what it takes. He feels like they shouldn’t have lost last year.”
Mahomes has returned to this season’s AFC championship game without the gaudy statistics or accolades of 2018, his first season as the Kansas City Chiefs’ starting quarterback. He watched the NFL’s attention shift elsewhere this fall. A dislocated kneecap sidelined him for two games. Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson replaced him as a talisman of the NFL’s future and almost certainly will snatch his MVP.
But Mahomes may use these playoffs as a reminder of who the league belongs to. Sunday afternoon, after his team bumbled through the first 20 minutes, he took the field down 24-0 to the Houston Texans at Arrowhead Stadium. Mahomes proceeded to lead seven consecutive touchdown drives, five of them capped with touchdown passes. By game’s end, Mahomes had thrown for 321 yards and the Chiefs won 51-31 which advanced them to a showdown at home this Sunday against the Tennessee Titans.
“He knows exactly who he is,” Chiefs backup quarterback Matt Moore said. “He’s a unique guy. It’s not by chance. He works at it. He is who he is for a reason. It’s just how he’s programmed, man.”
Mahomes’ offseason work means that Mahomes is not just the same quarterback he was last season, not just the best player in the league. This week could provide a showcase for the blueprint he hatched 11 months ago at the outset of the offseason, when he began reviewing one of the most statistically astounding years in NFL history and hunting for inefficiencies and imperfections.
In the months after Mahomes won the
MVP and his team came within an offsides penalty of the Super Bowl, he remade his body for reasons few people knew and bought into the reorientation of how his team played. The result, as summarized succinctly by Kansas City offensive tackle Mitchell Schwartz, has been clear.
“He’s definitely better,” Schwartz said. The sum outcome of Mahomes’ plan has led to this week, to another chance at making the Super Bowl. Stroupe said the effects of his Week 1 ankle injury are only now fully gone. Mahomes said after the Chiefs’ victory Sunday he’s been moving around better the past couple of weeks — against the Texans, he consistently extended plays and finished as the Chiefs’ leading rusher with 53 yards.
Mahomes’ primary stats may have dropped to 4,031 yards and 26 touchdowns, but other indicators hint at subtle improvement. He sliced his interception rate in half. He took about a half-sack less per game, even with left tackle Eric Fisher missing eight games to injury. Teammates saw him reading defenses better, his experience allowing him to recognize schemes and coverages faster.
“It’s probably unrealistic to think he’s going to do 50 and 5,000 again, anyway,” Schwartz said. “I think if you at look his mastery of knowing where to go, knowing who to go to, doing it correctly, he’s improved. And it’s kind of scary to think he’s going to keep getting better.”
Mahomes’ statistics have also been deflated by what his team requires of him this season compared to last. The Chiefs overhauled their defense, hiring Steve Spagnuolo as coordinator and acquiring safety Tyrann Matthieu, defensive ends Frank Clark and Alex Okafor and others.
The defensive improvement, which coincided roughly with Mahomes’ return from his knee injury, led Mahomes to take a different, more cautious approach. Sunday’s disastrous first quarter, when special teams and defensive gaffes led to a 24-0 deficit early in the second quarter, allowed Mahomes to reprise his role from last season. In response, he shredded Houston’s man-to-man coverage.
When needed, Mahomes can still thrive the way he did last season with pure shock and awe. He also can, as the product of careful design this offseason, lead an offense that carves up a sophisticated scheme while providing cover to his own defense.
The Titans, coached by former Patriots linebacker Mike Vrabel and built by former New England scout Jon Robinson, deploy many defensive structures Mahomes succumbed to in an empty first half last season against the Patriots. It will provide a fitting final test of how he refitted his game.