Tom Brady won a championship in 2018 with Trent Brown, a cast-off RT who was forced to start at LT after their presumed starter was injured and lost for the season in camp. He had Marcus Cannon, past his prime and never very good to begin with, at RT. His IOL was Andrews, Mason and Thuney -- a good IOL, but not great. He was throwing to a washed Edelman, Gronk on his way out of the league and Josh Gordon. None of them had more than 850 yards receiving.
In 2015 he threw for 4700 yards and a 36/7 TD/INT ratio with Sebastian Volmer and a pile of scraps at LT along with 3 rookies on his interior line and that very same pretty average Marcus Cannon at RT. He was throwing to Gronk, Edelman (who missed about half the season) Danny Amendola and Brandon LaFell.
I've spent decades watching Brady, Manning and Montana MAKE their offensive linemen. And they never did that by running around with their hair on fire -- they did it by running the offense on time. All too often, Mahomes doesn't. That's when he gets in trouble. He was at his best THIS season when he was just working the offense and getting the ball out on time.
I just can't get over the deep shot he pulled down Sunday. A high/low, 2-man route combination designed to create a look that depended entirely what the safety does. He looked right at the play. He saw the safety sink on the 'low' with Kelce. He had Worthy even with Mitchell knowing full well how fast Worthy is.
The play did exactly what it was designed to do. And he just wouldn't throw the ball.
It was over right then. I mean it was over BEFORE then, but that was the moment that it was clear that he just wasn't sharp.
And as he demonstrated against Pittsburgh and Houston and even Buffalo - the rest of this is bullshit. I said it BEFORE the Buffalo game that the guy we start at OT barely even matters -- what matters is that Mahomes comes out confident and decisive. When he does, the rest of it takes care of itself. When he doesn't, all hell breaks loose and every weakness we have on the roster is exacerbated. When he's good, the offense is good. When he's bad, it isn't.
The problem with the Chiefs offense, for 2 seasons now, has been the consistency or lack thereof of Patrick Mahomes.
He's still incredibly young in QB years. And he's been under STUPID amounts of pressure. I understand why some of these things happen with him.
But if he has a 3rd straight year of it...well, he's a pretty big part of that throughput. And "He doesn't trust X" is just ridiculous at this point. The Mount Rushmore QBs were asked to find the trust and figure it out. And Mahomes BELONGS on that Mount Rushmore -- so why shouldn't we expect him to build that trust? We've seen lesser talents than him do it with worse weapons. Or with equally bad OL.
I don't give a shit where he stands in relation to Lamar or Allen or whatever. He's an historic tier guy and that's the standard he should be held to. And those guys? They figured it out.