KANSAS CITY, Mo. — After throwing three interceptions in a 34-28 win at Denver last month, Patrick Mahomes sighed as he greeted the media after the game and delved right into what he called “three bad decisions” … and the common impetus behind them.
He was “trying to force it when it’s not there,” he would say, and was “just being a little too loose with the football.”
All because, even in his sixth NFL season, he’s still seeking to discern that elusive, as he put it, “fine line (between) when I’m doing that type of stuff and it’s good for us and when I do stuff and it’s bad for us.”
In a superficial sense, it might seem strange to hear Mahomes repeating something he’s been saying virtually his entire career.
As if he’s stuck trying to decipher the same issues or reconcile the same mundane data.
Instead, it speaks to something else entirely for an ever-evolving force blessed with what a forever family friend likes to call a “geo-spatial magic box” of a mind.
Along with the abiding mentality of always pushing the envelope — “to surpass normal limits or attempt something viewed as radical or risky,” as Merriam-Webster.com puts it.
That attitude, and his remarkable ability to execute in the margins and crannies where few dare to tread, is a vital part of why Mahomes is still thriving against the typically brilliant minds engineering NFL defenses. Even working with an almost entirely new receiving cast this season.
In fact, this season is likely to be punctuated with his second MVP coronation.
So it’s not that he’s still sorting out some fixed line as the Chiefs (14-3) prepared to begin the postseason on Saturday playing host to the Jacksonville Jaguars (10-8) as they strive to reach their fifth straight AFC Championship Game.
It’s that Mahomes is continuously reassessing and re-calibrating what that line is through collaboration with coach Andy Reid, the harmonious composer to Mahomes’ performer, and offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy and quarterbacks coach Matt Nagy.
Because the line is in flux (if not even blurry, as The Kansas City Star’s Jesse Newell wrote earlier this season) almost by design.
“I think with the great quarterbacks, the ones that do it consistently over time, that bar is always changing,” Nagy said when I asked him about that a few weeks ago. “It’s always moving. It is fluid.”
When we took up the topic again on Wednesday, Nagy reiterated that pushing the envelope “never ends with him. His mindset is that way.”
And while he believes Mahomes has improved at distinguishing between forcing the issue and seizing what’s there (with the help of that being a daily point of discussion), he also doesn’t want to sterilize Mahomes’ penchant for the spectacular.
