Usually, after a big win players will credit the preparation in the classroom or on the football field. If you ask one Kansas City Chiefs player about the secret to the team’s offensive success against the San Franciso 49ers — it came from an evening video game session between the team’s biggest offensive stars.
Buy Chiefs TicketsAfter the Week 7 win over the 49ers, JuJu Smith-Schuster was asked about Patrick Mahomes seemingly trusting him more in the passing game in recent weeks. Reporters wanted to know how that process has evolved since the off-season workouts that Mahomes hosted down in Tyler, Texas. The evolution seems to have occurred off the field with four teammates playing online video games together.
“Oh man, you want to talk about chemistry and trust,” Smith-Schuster exclaimed. “So, we start off in Dallas, you know we worked out there. . . We came back here, worked out at camp, built that chemistry. Obviously, preseason (and) camp, but I’m going to tell you what got us the chemistry that we needed this game. I think it was Friday night — it was me, Pat (Mahomes), Travis (Kelce) and (Marquez Valdes-Scantling) — we were playing Call of Duty: Warzone together. We played three games and we won three games back-to-back.”
Smith-Schuster feels that the battle royale video game allowed the four to work on their communication. He likened it to being in an NFL game and felt that it had a tangible impact in Week 7.
“And we got off (after the three wins) and we were like, ‘Damn.’ Because it’s really hard to win a game in Warzone,” Smith-Schuster explained. “And you could just like tell because of the communication between all of us and the chemistry, it was like we were in an (NFL) game. . . it kind of just bled into this game. It kind of just showed on the field.”
Patrick Mahomes was asked about the gaming session. He’s told reporters in the past that he abides by a no-video game policy during the season for the most part. But he strayed from that policy this week and it seemed to pay off.
“Yeah, I don’t play all the time, but some of those guys play,” Mahomes said. “I had kind of a free night on Friday, and so I told them, “I’ll get on with y’all for a little while.” It was me, Travis (Kelce), Marquez (Valdes-Scantling) and JuJu (Smith-Schuster). Marquez and Juju are really good, me and Travis are just alright. But we did our part and went 3-for-3 with three wins in warzone, which I don’t do often. They might, but I don’t, so I felt pretty good about it going into the game.”
As for whether it had an impact on the game against the 49ers, Mahomes felt it did. He says it’s all about building a stronger relationship with his teammates outside of football.
“Yeah, it’s cool,” Mahomes said. “When you get away from the facility, you’re doing kid-like things. You’re on the headset, you’re talking, you’re joking around and talking about the week. It kind of gets your mind off of just football and it’s about building those relationships. So it’s definitely cool to see those guys, even if it’s in a game, outside of the facility.”
There will be plenty of time for Mahomes, Smith-Schuster, Kelce and Valdes-Scantling to return to rebirth island and get some more wins during a well-deserved bye week. Hopefully, the chemistry, communication and relationships between these four continue to get stronger and stronger whether it’s video games or otherwise.
