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Ben Arthur
AFC South Reporter
You don’t need to tell Patrick Mahomes.
He knows he forced the ball.
It was Christmas Day against the Raiders. Late in the second quarter, trailing 15-7, the Chiefs looked to respond to a fumble returned for a touchdown on their previous possession — the result of a poor exchange between Mahomes and running back Isiah Pacheco.
Mahomes took the snap, moved a few steps to his right and fired a pass to wide receiver Justin Watson, who had barely gotten out of his break as Las Vegas’ Jack Jones jumped the route and returned the interception 33 yards to the house.
“I just can’t make that throw,” Mahomes said postgame.
Mahomes’ miscue felt symbolic of these Chiefs. How not even the league’s best quarterback is immune to the team’s offensive ineptitude. How he has contributed to it.
Kansas City (9-6), which saw its hopes of an eighth straight AFC West title delayed for at least one more week with Monday’s loss to Las Vegas, looks like a pretender with the playoffs fast approaching. The Chiefs are the most vulnerable they’ve been in the Mahomes era. We’ve collectively waited for the Chiefs to start looking like the Chiefs. It hasn’t happened.
It starts with their issues at wide receiver. Those have clearly impacted Mahomes’ process in the pocket. Against the Raiders, he seemed to hold the ball for an eternity, with pass-catchers struggling to get open and create separation. His average time to throw was 3.40 seconds, according to Next Gen Stats. That’s the second-longest he’s held the ball in a game this season (his average time to throw was 3.43 seconds in the Week 8 loss to Denver). For the year, he’s averaging 2.97 seconds to throw, the slowest of his career.
Chiefs wide receivers have a league-leading 19 drops and a 6.6% drop rate, dead-last in the NFL by more than two percentage points, per NGS. The issues at the position have hurt Mahomes, who’s having the worst year of his…
Source link : https://www.foxsports.com/stories/nfl/chiefs-have-never-been-more-vulnerable-in-patrick-mahomes-era-can-they-flip-switch
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Publish date : 2023-12-29 15:05:56
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