During Sunday’s AFC Championship victory over the Buffalo Bills, the Kansas City Chiefs relied on Patrick Mahomes’ legs as much as his arm. The reigning Super Bowl MVP carried the ball 11 times for 43 yards and two touchdowns.
Mahomes addressed his decision to run more during his postgame press conference.
“They always give me options to kind of pull the ball and run it. And they were playing man coverage a lot of the day and putting a lot of attention on Travis (Kelce),” said Mahomes. “So with them kind of pushing that safety, pushing that linebacker to Travis, it opened up different lanes for me to run; I pulled some of those, those reads that I’ve had all season long, just because it’s playoffs, and you have to make sure that the defense is true to what their rules are.”
Mahomes created problems for the Bills’ defense, as they often were concerned with his legs opening up significant gains down the field to receivers Xavier Worthy and JuJu Smith-Schuster. While Kelce received much attention, his teammates and Mahomes benefitted from their in-game offensive adjustments.
Worthy was a game leader in receiving with six catches for 85 yards and a touchdown, while Smith-Schuster tallied two catches for 60 yards.
