Patrick Mahomes Week 5 film review: Still working on trust
The offense had more of a spark vs New Orleans, but there are still some clear gaps in trust for Mahomes.
You know the drill. Every week (well, most weeks) I’ll be charting every dropback by Patrick Mahomes this year, just like I’ve done for… well, his whole career. As I laid out in the Week 1 film review (which is unlocked so you can see the methodology in more detail), statistical analysis of quarterbacks, especially in small sample sizes, doesn’t really tell us the whole story or even most of it. So I chart things that the QB can control, such as accuracy, pocket presence, franchise throws, going through reads, and more.
One of the most interesting storylines of the 2024 season is that Patrick Mahomes has yet to play up to his standard… and the Chiefs are still undefeated.
It’s sort of a “good news, bad news” situation in that it’s obviously never good when your quarterback (especially a metahuman whose consistency has been remarkable throughout his career) isn’t playing as well as the norm, but yet he’s still so good that his “subpar” is enough to win games with the help of a terrific defense. But the fact remains that, even though the offense showed significantly more spark against New Orleans in Week 5, there were still very obviously a few issues in Mahomes’ game that need to be ironed out over the bye week.
If I were to pick a word that sums up what the issue remained, even in an overall solid outing, it would be “trust.” Because as of right now, Mahomes doesn’t trust two crucial elements of the offense, and it’s affecting his play in a way that results in more negative snaps than we generally see from him. Even in a game where the offense largely (outside the red zone) rolled.
I want to be sure I’m communicating clearly, as it’s easy for narratives to get out of hand; Patrick Mahomes was good by normal QB standards against the Saints, and he was better than he was the previous week against the Chargers by a decent margin.
We’ll get to the charting shortly, but he threw the ball accurately, created yards at a far higher rate than most QB’s can, made some really killer throws, and generally controlled the game at the line with his mind (he set up protections well, checked to appropriate plays to punish certain looks, etc). But he still isn’t trusting what he’s seeing out there at times, and it shows in a couple different ways.
Let’s talk about Mahomes’ film against the Saints, where he played well, where he showed some of the same issues (to a lesser degree) that he had against the Chargers, and how the offense as a whole seems to be morphing a bit to compensate for his lack of trust (some of it warranted) in certain things.
If you’re looking for the previous weeks’ film reviews, you can find them here.
-Week 1 (which lays out the terms and methodology)