The Kansas City Chiefs beat the Baltimore Ravens 27-20 in the first game of the 2024 NFL season. The game was ultimately decided by Isaiah Likely's shoe size, but a heads-up play by quarterback Patrick Mahomes is what put the Ravens in a near-impossible situation with time winding down.
Facing third-and-10 late in the fourth quarter, the Chiefs had to throw with the two-minute warning approaching. Mahomes dropped back and threw a pass that was hit by a defender. The ball bounced in the air, and Mahomes had to out-jump two defenders to catch his own pass. He was immediately tackled, but he prevented the interception and kept the clock running, effectively wasting about 30 seconds of game clock before the Chiefs had to punt.
NBC analyst Cris Collinsworth was very impressed.
Only Cris Collinsworth could find a way to still praise Mahomes for almost throwing an interception #BALvsKC pic.twitter.com/NoRrNiRhkc
— Rate the Refs App (@Rate_the_Refs) September 6, 2024
"First of all," Collinsworth said, "this is a humongous play by Patrick Mahomes. He's gotta out-jump those two guys or it's going to get intercepted. He's got somebody on either side. He knew exactly what was going on. We saw Lamar Jackson in the championship game catch one of his own balls. That was huge."
Whether it was clock management or a dude's natural inclination to try and catch a football that made Mahomes want to go get the ball—we may never know, but it really did end up being a game-saver for the Chiefs.
And on top of that, it's funny to see a guy complete a pass to himself in the official play-by-play.
This was just the second career reception for Mahomes. Despite the Chiefs's propensity for trick plays, he's never caught a pass that was thrown to him by someone else. He did, however, catch another batted ball during the first quarter of a Chiefs win over the Denver Broncos in Week 17 of the 2022 season.
Funny play by #Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes in which his pass what batted at the LOS & Mahomes caught it & ran for 6 yards. #ChiefsKingdom pic.twitter.com/jHaGFQWe4Y
— Devon Clements (@DevclemNFL) January 1, 2023
The Chiefs ended up scoring on that drive. Somehow this punt was more important.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Patrick Mahomes Made the Biggest Catch of His Career to Help Preserve Win vs. Ravens.
