Patrick Mahomes Week 2 film review: High highs with more lows than usual
Looking closer at an unusually uneven performance from the Chiefs' QB. What went right, what went wrong, and why?
Each week here, I’ll be reviewing every snap by Patrick Mahomes, charting things that gauge quarterback performance and measuring traits like accuracy, pocket presence, vision/awareness, playmaking, and ball protection. The idea is to quantify how the quarterback played beyond the box score and contextualize his play from supporting cast and scheme. You can find the terms and methodology here.
A lot of weeks writing about Patrick Mahomes (most of them, really) is an exercise in finding appropriate superlatives. His level of play is so high that it feels like you’re just repeating some version of “wow” over and over. The consistency is so… well, consistent, that it becomes repetitive to the point of being boring talking about the same things being done well over and over again. The goal there is to just hope that I can reveal some aspect of his excellence that you missed in-game.
However, that isn’t always the case. Sometimes there’s bad mixed in with the good (I’ve yet to see a Mahomes game that there was more bad than good other than a single exception, for what that’s worth). Sometimes the miraculous plays are a little more sparse, and you see some head-scratching or just flat-out bad plays mixed in. And when that occurs, the goal of what I’m doing changes. It goes from describing the incredible to explaining how things went wrong, even as I look at the things that still went right.
Today is the latter sort of film review. Mahomes had his share of exceptional moments against the Los Angeles Chargers, including a few of his usual “bending the rules of both football and physics” moments.
However, the offense struggled much of the evening and was in part carried by a defense that stepped up for large stretches of the game (thanks in part to a standout performance from Chris Jones). There were several factors that came into play, but Mahomes himself wasn’t as sharp as he normally is and, in fact, was downright lucky in multiple moments in ways that didn’t show up in the box score.
So like every week, let’s talk Mahomes’ film. If you are unfamiliar with how I chart and write about quarterback play, the (unlocked) Week 1 review explains the methodology and reasoning, as well as the definitions used. The goal, as ever, is to separate the QB’s play from what is around the QB to get a better gauge on how he did on his own. You can find the previous views by clicking the links below:
Let’s look at the numbers, then talk some film, including how the Chargers were able to give the Chiefs problems in an area most teams haven’t the last several years.