What is wrong with Mahomes' deep ball?

[TLO]

I was in the camp most of the season in saying that these guys are going to get on the same page, and eventually the deep shots will start hitting.

After today, I'm not sure this is the case.

Is this an offensive line issue? Just not enough time for Mahomes to set and fire an accurate deep ball?

Is it an WR issue? We have 1 burner in Worthy, but the rest of our receivers are slow.

Is it a Mahomes issue?

Someone smarter than me tell me what's going on.

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by wazu

He seems to think he can play based on his social media posts. It's impossible to prove or disprove as he hasn't been in a football uniform since the Super Bowl.

All true.

[wachashi]

A QB that's constantly worried about his blindside is just not going to be very effective, especially on deep balls. The footwork, the protection calls, the vision. All of it relies on having at least SOME level of confidence in protection.

We have to get Humphries back so he can get more reps.

[chiefzilla1501]

Originally Posted by Mecca

That's also a mix problem too, do you go for more valuable positions or the player?

Picking where we do adding any type of blue chip player is difficult. So do you go less valuable position like say RB because you might be able to add an actual blue chip talent..or do you go with a CB or edge because while not blue chip the position is more important.

It's not an easy spot to be in.

Veach has been exceptional at other spots. We’re just starting to draft very well at WR too. dB for example, we’ve been incredibly good.

I think we just take the L and recognize LT will be very difficult to draft but it’s way too important to risk. Maybe make an exception there.

I threw out an uncomfortable conversation point last year that maybe feels a little more real now. We caught lightning in a bottle with the defense but it is just a bear to maintain. We’ve used a lot of our very best draft capital on defense and been content to plug in JV starters on offense. We are going to lose guys like Snead and we probably should think twice about even guys like Bolton. Seems we’re ripe for a pivot where we should ask our offense to carry the defense again.

[chiefzilla1501]

Also we need a reset year once our run is over. Take one year to gut veterans like thuney (preferably through trade), stockpile these picks + comp picks. Kelce retiring seems like a good spot to do this. But we aren’t there yet. Hopefully we still have plenty of kelce left.

[RunKC]

At 31 seconds. The Worthy miss.

Look at Mahomes head. He never looked off of Watson. Even pump faked. It was either a designed 1 read play to push the ball downfield or Patrick is purposefully not going through reads.

Don’t think he’s sticking to Watson on purpose here. Feels like that’s the playcall and what the coaches wanted.

The #Chiefs OL protection yesterday against the Browns when Mahomes was on the field. #ChiefsKingdom pic.twitter.com/EF6395fnBo

— Nick Jacobs (@Jacobs71) December 16, 2024

[Bearcat]

A few of those early plays just look brutal from that perspective... at :11 and the play after that, three Chiefs all moving in the same direction with like 6+ Browns around.

And then you get into the scoring drive, and holy shit, use some misdirection and don't have half the team going to the same spot on the field, and there's actually some space out there.

[Megatron96]

Wonder how much of Pat's issues have to do with his ankle injury? Just watching that tape, he almost never steps into his deep throws, he steps out.


Overall, I feel like his clock is sped up. A couple times he seems to try and slow it down, but then he gets bumped or hit while trying to throw, and then on the next snap his clock is sped up again.

And I don't care what the analytics say, the OL play isn't good. Pat regularly has IOL walked back into him, the OTs are regularly giving up the inside or the outside; there's just not a lot of time on a lot of those snaps for Pat to get through even 2 reads. And several times he gets bumped as he's throwing, or he pulls it down because he gets bumped and then he's late.

And then you have the reps where it looks like he's predetermined where he's going with the ball, like that deep shot to JWat. Now, the tight doesn't really show what's happening outside the numbers, so we can't really see what else was available there, but it looks pretty obvious that JWat just isn't open, but Pat lets it fly anyway. And it's not a very good throw either. Or it's not a well-run route. Either way, I can't see how that was a good idea.


And the deep ball to DHop #3:10. That ball is short to the inside, but the DB is on the inside. That ball needed to be on the outside and leading DHop. But Pat gets pressure in his face so he can't step into the pass, and it ends up being short and inside. It was kind of amazing that Hopkins got his hands on it at all.

[FloridaMan88]

It would really help if the Chiefs had more explosive players who could break away for big passing plays, that were not initiated by big passes, in terms of air yardage.

Thinking about a play like Turpin provided for Dallas a few weeks ago vs Texans… it was just a 15 yard crossing pattern that he turned up field and housed for a 64 yard TD.

[BigRedChief]

Originally Posted by chiefzilla1501

Im with DJLN on this. We need to cut bait on our Guards and go get us a veteran LT. Even if it means overpaying for average. We can handle average. Maybe we have that in house with Humphreys once he’s fully conditioned and acclimated.

I’ve mentioned in the past that we really need to be overwhelming our roster with lower skill positions like guard and LB. We need to keep doing it at Rb. These are positions you can hit on in the low rounds. I wish we would do more of that. It’s gonna be a real hard pill to swallow if we pay huge $s to Trey and thuney but we couldn’t pay for a skill player like Snead.

Trey is fantastic. The problem is that all the rest of the NFL knows it too. He will get big money. We can’t sign everyone. Wayna has shown promise as a good run blocker. Put him there. Spend the money on a LT.

[RunKC]

Originally Posted by FloridaMan88

It would really help if the Chiefs had more explosive players who could break away for big passing plays, that were not initiated by big passes, in terms of air yardage.

Thinking about a play like Turpin provided for Dallas a few weeks ago vs Texans… it was just a 15 yard crossing pattern that he turned up field and housed for a 64 yard TD.

Like Rashee Rice and Hollywood Brown?

We are getting one of them back this week

[Chief Pagan]

Originally Posted by chiefzilla1501

Veach has been exceptional at other spots. We’re just starting to draft very well at WR too. dB for example, we’ve been incredibly good.

I think we just take the L and recognize LT will be very difficult to draft but it’s way too important to risk. Maybe make an exception there.

I threw out an uncomfortable conversation point last year that maybe feels a little more real now. We caught lightning in a bottle with the defense but it is just a bear to maintain. We’ve used a lot of our very best draft capital on defense and been content to plug in JV starters on offense. We are going to lose guys like Snead and we probably should think twice about even guys like Bolton. Seems we’re ripe for a pivot where we should ask our offense to carry the defense again.

I was in the minority that I leaned against resigning CJ, because of basically this argument. And worries about his production versus cap hit at the end of that contract. But that is what it is and he is obviously carrying the pass rush. So go CJ.

But yea, without continuous great drafting, you end up with JAGs because you can't bring in expensive FAs and resign all of your own talent too.

[kccrow]

Originally Posted by RunKC

At 31 seconds. The Worthy miss.

Look at Mahomes head. He never looked off of Watson. Even pump faked. It was either a designed 1 read play to push the ball downfield or Patrick is purposefully not going through reads.

Don’t think he’s sticking to Watson on purpose here. Feels like that’s the playcall and what the coaches wanted.

The #Chiefs OL protection yesterday against the Browns when Mahomes was on the field. #ChiefsKingdom pic.twitter.com/EF6395fnBo

— Nick Jacobs (@Jacobs71) December 16, 2024

Looks like the bulk of the issue with pressure in this one was Thuney getting his ass absolutely rocked by Garrett. There were a couple of interior fails with Caliendo (to be expected with a first start) and then on the whole with blitz pickup communication. Overall, they looked solid as a whole when Garrett was out, not so much when he was in. One-man wrecking crew. Humphries is the golden ticket to keeping the pressure to tolerable.

[BigRedChief]

Here is Mahomes throwing to Watson in double coverage. But, Worthy is wide open and could have took it down into the red zone easily.

[TheGuardian]

Originally Posted by kccrow

Looks like the bulk of the issue with pressure in this one was Thuney getting his ass absolutely rocked by Garrett. There were a couple of interior fails with Caliendo (to be expected with a first start) and then on the whole with blitz pickup communication. Overall, they looked solid as a whole when Garrett was out, not so much when he was in. One-man wrecking crew. Humphries is the golden ticket to keeping the pressure to tolerable.

Thuney started off really well then as the game went on Garrett was just blowing up the pocket. That dude is an absolute freak.

So it's really just that left side over and over and over. But that one position has basically crippled the offense all year.

So yeah we need to go out this season and spend whatever it takes to get a GOOD left tackle. Not draft someone else and hope we can coach them up because that formula has failed this front office over and over and over for that position.

[rfaulk34]

Originally Posted by RunKC

Look at the Broncos miss at :55

He saw the LT appear to be beating the LT again and it sped him up. Look at his footwork. Rushed. No anticipation and poor footwork.

That’s what happens when your QB gets knocked to the ground all game

mmmm. Not always.