Arguably no one knows Patrick Mahomes — the quarterback — better than Andy Reid. The long-time Chiefs coach is the person who spearheaded the selection of Mahomes in the 2017 NFL Draft. He’s the person who’s led the development of Mahomes into becoming a perennial Pro Bowler, an MVP, a Super Bowl MVP and one of the iron-clad faces of the league.
All around, the two are quite the head coach-quarterback duo.
Knowing this, Reid had to be perplexed about a recent report from The Athletic’s Mike Sando that admonished Mahomes’ polish as a superstar signal caller. In a ranking of the NFL’s QB tiers, an anonymous defensive coach said Mahomes struggles when defenses take away his first read as a pocket passer and that he leans on “streetball” (i.e., scrambling and playmaking off the cuff) too much. (Note: Some coward, who would also only make their comments anonymously in the same article, lobbed lazy, tired criticisms toward Lamar Jackson.)
On Friday afternoon, after the Chiefs wrapped up another training camp practice, Reid had a concise but effective retort to defend his franchise player:
#Chiefs HC Andy Reid with a S/O to @PFF and snark toward anonymous NFL defensive coach featured in @TheAthletic's QB tier article:
"You guys take a look at Pro Football Focus and all of that, just take a peek at that and see how many times (Mahomes) hits the second receiver."
— Charles Goldman (@goldmctNFL) July 29, 2022
Ah, what a win for the nerds when one of the league’s premier coaches says to look at the advanced numbers underneath. The general stats on Pro Football Reference will give you enough context, too, about Mahomes unique “streetball” abilities:
Through 63 games as a starter, here are Mahomes’ stats:
- 66.1 completion percentage
- 18,991 passing yards (!)
- 151 touchdowns to just 37 interceptions (a 4:1 ratio!)
- 8.1 yards per pass attempt
If that’s what Mahomes accomplishes by playing streetball too much, then, by all means, he should probably continue. I’m no mathematician, but it seems to be working pretty well. For what it’s worth: Tipico Sportsbook has Mahomes at +900 (second-best) to win his second MVP next year. Wow, it’s almost as if anyone reasonable, with working eyes, doesn’t care about Mahomes ad-libbing often.
The real crux of the issue that Reid helps bring up about Mahomes and players of his build is even more vital.
There isn’t any actual merit to these unfounded criticisms of multifaceted, gifted quarterbacks like Mahomes (and Jackson), who aren’t traditional statues. It seems like the coaches who continue to try and tear down quarterbacks in this manner (again, only anonymously!) speak their minds more out of rampant insecurity.
Deep down, they have to know the league has moved away from the stiff robots who can only drop back five to seven steps and launch a 15-yard deep out. And it’s more challenging to consistently scheme up ways to stop guys who can simply do more. Rather than adapt and recognize the wave of pro football’s future, they’d instead publicly pretend that quarterbacks like Mahomes are ruining their gameplans in the “wrong” way.
Every Mahomes laser downfield should have made it clear it’s not going to work out for them.
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