Patrick Mahomes Week 5 review: Pocket presence, pressure, and brilliance

On what was overall a spectacular day, Mahomes' happy feet and the offensive line's struggles held the offense back

Patrick Mahomes was awesome against the Raiders.

Patrick Mahomes had some pocket presence issues against the Raiders.

The offensive line had some serious protection issues against the Raiders.

Penalties and drops were a problem against the Raiders that robbed Mahomes of even more great plays.

All of those sentences are simultaneously true, which makes last Sunday’s game against Las Vegas an interesting one to talk about. The day was filled with spectacular plays made and franchise quarterback throws by Mahomes when the rest of the offense had some issues against a good Vegas gameplan and with self-inflicted wounds (dropped passes, untimely penalties, and the like). An easy example was the late 2-point conversion that brought the game within reach.

This is the precise sort of play that makes Mahomes an impossible quandary to solve. The Raiders initially play excellent coverage here and have a linebacker assigned to pursue Mahomes if he gets out of the pocket. That linebacker gets pressure quickly, and should by all accounts collect a sack here. Instead, he’s left grasping air and Mahomes finds Williams in between a pair of exasperated defenders.

However, this game also contained some lows for Mahomes in one specific area: pocket presence.

This snap is an example of an issue Mahomes had multiple times against the Raiders: Rather than climbing the pocket and continuing to survey the field utilizing more subtle movements, he tries to bail out around the edge and alters the angle of the rushers/blockers to the point that he creates pressure on himself. The end result is a forced throw-away to avoid a sack.

After Sunday’s game, there was a great deal of talk about the offensive line, which I discussed in detail soon thereafter, and the pressure they were allowing on Mahomes. Later on in the week, there was a lot of discussion about Mahomes’ pocket presence and whether he was the bigger issue by failing to utilize his blockers due to depth of drop or starting to scramble around rather than working the pocket.

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The reason this has been such a hotly-contest issue is that the reality is that both things were an issue against the Raiders. Let’s look at the numbers (if you need a primer on what the terms I use mean and how they gauge quarterback play better than stats, check out the Week 1 review). Otherwise, let’s look at some numbers.

There are a lot of numbers to digest here, but first thing to note is that Mahomes made a bunch of really incredible plays on Sunday. His 9 “franchise throws” were even more than he made against the Ravens a few weeks back in what the most dreamily perfect game of his career. He created 125 yards of offense on plays that were looking like they failed, some of which were the sort of typically spectacular plays we’ve come to expect.

On this touchdown throw to Sammy Watkins, Mahomes finds himself under pressure from multiple directions, with an edge rusher able to corner (to an extent) against Schwartz to get pressure deeper in the pocket, and both Fisher and the interior line letting the pocket get crushed to prevent him from stepping up.

Mahomes shakes off a potential tackler and then does is thing, dragging the play out to the sideline and finding Watkins open after managing to Jedi-mind-trick the defender into jumping inside. It’s a spectacular play made despite the protection failing him, and that happened more than a few times Sunday.

It’s also worth noting that Mahomes lost multiple big plays due to penalties and/or drops. Two of his better plays of the season didn’t count. The first came on the first drive of the day (which notably ended in a punt).

It’s important to see the all-22 version of this throw to see just how far it travels in the air (nearly 65 yards) and how precisely it lands into Hill’s hands. Also, note the way Mahomes climbs the pocket in order to buy an extra moment and step into the throw. A holding penalty on Osemele called it back, though, and wiped the play off the board.

Another exceptional throw didn’t count later in the game, this one a crucial drop by tight end Nick Keizer on 3rd and 20 with a little under 5 minutes remaining in the first half.

This was an exceptional throw that hit Keizer (who is a player I do like, by the way) in the hands. It would have converted the third and long with about four and a half minutes left in the first half and the Chiefs leading 21-17, and put them in the driver’s seat to score before the half while keeping the ball out of Las Vegas’s hands. Instead, the Chiefs gave the ball back and the Raiders scored to take the lead a few minutes later. It was arguably one of the biggest swing moments of the game, and Mahomes had nothing to do with the drive ending.

In short, Mahomes made multiple massive plays to drag the Chiefs down the field (and ultimately put up a very respectable 32 points) on a day where the offensive line was having a really hard time protecting him consistently, some poorly-timed penalties wiped out big plays and put them behind the sticks, AND drops were worse than normal for the Chiefs.

And make no mistake, the pressure was there and was coming from everywhere.

The interior line, and Andrew Wylie in particular, have taken a lot of heat for failing to protect Mahomes. And there’s a great deal of truth in that. Wylie had multiple “instant pressure” snaps on Sunday and was the primary culprit, but Remmers struggled as well filling in at guard (Reiter was the least culpable of the three).

However, pressure wasn’t just coming from the interior. Eric Fisher had a poor day in pass protection, and even Schwartz lost at a higher rate than normal (to be fair, his “normal” rate of losing is practically non-existent and he’s been added to the the Chiefs’ injury list with a back issue).

On this 4th quarter snap, both tackles lose quickly and Mahomes has to check down immediately. There weren’t as many bad snaps from the tackles as the interior, but they were problematic and killed several plays very quickly.

The Raiders had a pretty good coverage plan against the Chiefs and were hassling Mahomes throughout the day, which is an incredibly difficult situation for a quarterback to deal with. That is partly why he had three potential picks (well above his career average) and actually threw an interception (a 4th down heave under pressure where he just was trying to give the offense a chance at converting, with no one actually open).

So why did I start off as being critical of Mahomes’ pocket presence if there was so much going wrong around him and he did so much himself? well, because he did (I’m guessing in part due to some of the pressure he was seeing on various snaps) create a lot of pressure on his own as well. His seven “happy feet” snaps (and the resultant four “missed shots”) are significantly higher than he normally has in a given game. For example, in 2018 Mahomes averaged 1.9 “happy feet” snaps per game.

Multiple times against Las Vegas, Mahomes ran himself into trouble by trying to scramble around rather than keeping his movement simple in the pocket, even if the protection was more than adequate.

This is the sort of play Mahomes has been so good at avoiding throughout his career, and moments like it are the reason Sunday’s game against the Raiders doesn’t go down as one of his best despite making so many big plays.

Mahomes is facing four rushers here, which the line does a good job handling. There’s nothing resembling pressure early, and he has plenty of space to step up and continue to go through his reads (probably a full 2 seconds before anything would develop as real pressure, an eternity in the NFL). Had he done so, Mecole Hardman comes open in a vacant spot in the zone.

The call is good and the protection is good, but Mahomes gets happy feet and tries to bail out. This allows the interior rusher to disengage from his blocker and pursue, and the play ends in Mahomes being stopped for no yards.

Mahomes’ seven happy feet snaps were more than Weeks 1 and 3 combined by a large margin, and even more than he had against the Chargers, when I wrote about a similar issue. It was a legitimate issue that compounded the problems they were already having in pass protection. While it’s somewhat understandable that he was getting antsy given the pressure he was facing, most games Mahomes is still able to decipher when to bail and when to hold firm or move around the pocket. Against the Raiders, Mahomes and the offensive line took turns (though the OL failed more frequently) causing pressure.

It’s easy to see why Mahomes thinks he should bail out, because so often he’s able to make something incredible happen.

This was a 3rd and 15 conversion in which Mahomes made an absolutely spectacular throw. However, he also bailed out of a pocket where the protection was there, forcing a more difficult play. Had he remained in the pocket he could have continued to survey, as the pressure only started once he’d broken to his left and opened a pursuit angle. It’s a play that shows both the best and “worst” (I use italics because his worst isn’t really that bad) of Mahomes’ game.

In addition to some happy feet, Mahomes was a little late to some checkdowns against the Raiders that might have made his day easier in breaking up their coverage and pass rush. His hesitancy caused a few inaccurate throws as he went there late, as well as a couple of occasions where the gain was shorter than it could have been.

Here, Mahomes doesn’t have any looks he likes and so checks down to Edwards-Helaire, who is open due to what appears to be a late-arriving zone defender. There’s some room for CEH here and the opportunity to be 1x1 in space. However, rather than getting the ball out immediately and in rhythm, Mahomes hesitates (perhaps he thinks a rusher will get a hand in the way, but it really doesn’t appear that should be an issue) and double clutches. By the time he releases, the defender has closed and CEH has had to stop.

Overall, Mahomes’ performance against the Raiders was at a significantly higher level than most quarterbacks will ever reach. He made multiple exceptional plays in a tough spot. However, he wasn’t perfect, and his happy feet emerged for the second time this season and in part led to some of the Chiefs’ offensive issues, particularly in the second half.

With the Bills defense looming, it will be interesting to see how the Chiefs look to address the problems they had against the Raiders. It’s generally simple execution stuff, not a situation where the Raiders really had them “figured out,” so there’s every reason to be confident Mahomes and the rest of the offense will tighten up from the mistakes that plagued them last Sunday.

And it’s worth remembering they still scored 32 points despite all this. So waiting a moment to hit the panic button would be wise, particularly given all the plays Mahomes made on a day that was less than his best.