Hard knocks on road to playoffs
Bell: Young Chiefs QB learns lessons in defeat
LOS ANGELES – Patrick Mahomes departed the Coliseum on Monday night knowing he left something on the field when he fell short in the shootout of the year.
Two late interceptions. Two stripsack fumbles. A pick-six. Can’t get any of them back now.
Yet now it’s a matter of the young Kansas City quarterback taking away hard-knock lessons from the Coliseum that could make a big difference in January, amid the win-or-go-home stakes of the playoffs.
“It’s the same as when we played New England,” Mahomes said after the 54-51 track meet left the Chiefs as the first team in NFL history to lose a game despite scoring 50 or more points.
“I mean it’s just, you can’t make mistakes against great teams, and when you play these games, you know these are the games you’re going to play hopefully in the playoffs. You want to make sure that you limit your mistakes and that still, at the same time, be aggressive and still score points.”
Mahomes passed for six touchdowns, but you might say that he actually accounted for eight, as Rams linebacker Samson Ebukam turned two of his five turnovers into instant points — an 11-yard fumble return score and a 25yard interception return.
Someone asked which mistake stung the worst. Mahomes didn’t hesitate. The first interception, on a weak pass to his right, never gave tight end Demetrius Harris a chance.
“The guy was open and I feel like I was a little early, so I babied it instead of just ripping it like I’ve been doing the whole game,” Mahomes said.
Lesson learned. Sure enough, he “ripped it” on the other two picks in the final two minutes but wound up with similar lost opportunities. For as much as Mahomes can wow you with his cannon arm and precision touch, his inexperience and lapses in taking care of the football bit him hard on Monday night.
But at least when Mahomes and the Chiefs (9-2) get to January, they’ll have a better sense of the intensity and environment of a playoff atmosphere. That’s what the game resembled in some regards — playoff football.
Then again, some crucial mistakes that happened on Monday night will send you home in the postseason.
It’s striking that after Marcus Peters picked off Mahomes for what was seemingly a game-sealing interception with 1:18 remaining, the Rams ran just 28 seconds off the clock before punting and giving Kansas City yet another chance to rally for a win.
No, Rams coach Sean McVay never gave the ball to star running back Todd Gurley on that series. But with the Chiefs still holding all three of their timeouts, they needed to move the chains.
A first-down penalty and seconddown incompletion were more damaging during that the drive than the decision not to hand it to Gurley. Still, it might provide a what-if lesson for salting away a win.
Chiefs coach Andy Reid, meanwhile, hardly threw Mahomes under the bus for the last-minute picks. On the first one, pressure from Ebukam forced an errant throw. On the final interception, Reid acknowledged that his quarterback was just trying to make something happen.
“He’s made enough of them where I have full trust in him,” Reid said.
Yet Reid’s play-calling can be questioned, too, particularly on the penultimate drive. Trailing by three, the Chiefs could have stood to work down the field with shorter throws, rather than winging it deep, even though that’s part of Mahomes’ magic.
“I could’ve called better throws down the stretch,” Reid said. Could’ve. Would’ve. Should’ve. Reid should know better than anyone, given his stature as one of the NFL’s winningest active coaches and repeated playoff failures that haven’t measured up to his regular-season success.
At least the standard is set. Barring a collapse over the next six weeks, the Chiefs are bound for the playoffs. Whether they advance to a Super Bowl might hinge on lessons learned from Monday night.
“We just understand: No mistakes,” linebacker Dee Ford said. “Everything is magnified in games like this. Any little inch you give will come back and haunt you in the end. That’s playoff football for you.”
Maybe by the time they get to the playoffs, they’ll know better.