Everybody spent this week sharing the seven hours a day quote, and while that was going on the Chiefs started lining Patrick Mahomes under center at camp. That is a much bigger deal than it sounds.
Last season the Chiefs lined up in shotgun on 80.6 percent of their snaps. Third most in the entire NFL, per TruMedia. Then at camp last week Nate Taylor of ESPN charted Mahomes under center for more than half of the first-team 11-on-11 reps.
That is a whole new offense for a 30-year-old quarterback who has done it one way his entire career.
They’ll tell you Patrick Mahomes under center is all about Kenneth Walker III
And it is. That’s a real reason. Walker was the biggest thing Kansas City did all offseason, four years in Seattle, and Andy Reid wants to see him run between the tackles because that’s what he does best. You get more of that from under center. Creed Humphrey is out there telling reporters “under center stuff is fun,” which is the most offensive lineman sentence ever said.
So that’s the explanation and it holds up. I’m just noting that a team does not go from the third most shotgun offense in football to Patrick Mahomes under center in one summer for no reason at all, and the guy taking those snaps had two ligaments in his left knee rebuilt in December.
Both things can be true.
The Patrick Mahomes ACL rehab bought him a floor, not a ceiling
Here’s the part where I have to be honest with you instead of just being impressed.
Seven hours a day buys you strength. It buys you range of motion, it buys you the ability to plant and throw, and it is the reason he was cleared before the veterans reported instead of sitting on PUP in September. That’s the floor, and the floor is real.
What it does not buy is the other thing. Dr. David Chao, who spotted the LCL off the video before anybody confirmed it, said in December that an ACL reconstruction plus an LCL repair is a much higher bar than a normal ACL, and that Mahomes might be pocket-fine long before he’s actually moving like Patrick Mahomes again. He put 2027 on it.
You can rehab a knee. You cannot rehab the instinct that made him step up, spin out of a sack and go get eight yards without thinking about it once.
The good news is he might not have to for a while
The stuff around him got legitimately better, which is not something you could say about the Chiefs last year.
Eric Bieniemy is back as the offensive coordinator, and the last time he had that job, 2018 through 2022, Kansas City never finished lower than sixth in the league in points. Xavier Worthy hurt his shoulder on the third play of the season opener last year and was never the same after it, and he’s healthy now. Rashee Rice had surgery in May to clean debris out of his knee and he’s already back in 11-on-11. Kelce is still Kelce. And Justin Fields is sitting there as the most qualified insurance policy Mahomes has ever had behind him.
Reid, after Saturday’s practice, said Mahomes is doing everything he normally does and doing it well, that they’re letting the doctors steer, and that right now he’s safe to roll.
He also hasn’t said whether Mahomes plays in the preseason at all. If they hold him out, that’s the first time in his ten-year career.
September 14th, Monday night, Denver at Arrowhead
That’s the schedule, and I don’t think the NFL accidentally put that one under the lights.
Denver won the AFC West while Mahomes was watching. The Chargers finished ahead of Kansas City too. A 6-11 season ended ten straight playoff appearances and nine straight division titles, and the whole building has spent eight months acting like that was a personal insult.
So here’s my actual call. He plays. He’ll throw it fine, because throwing it was never the question and the tape from camp says the arm is completely intact.
The moment I’m watching for has nothing to do with Patrick Mahomes under center or any of it. It’s the first third down where the pocket collapses and there’s grass in front of him.
Because in the 2023 AFC Championship, on a bad ankle, he ran for nine yards in the last minute to seal it, and Julie Frymyer said afterward that scramble was the only highlight she ever needed. She just spent another eight months on him.
