Mahomes says Reid has challenged him to 'push the ball down the field'

Mahomes, Reid and Nagy all had offseason homework; How to get back to 'cutting it loose' more often.

On a night full of lows, there was one aspect to Super Bowl LIX on which the Chiefs could potentially hang their hat heading into the 2025 season. Mahomes found success doing something he had not done all season: with the game out of reach, he let it rip.

“I think (Head) Coach (Andy) Reid has challenged me this offseason to push the ball down the field, let guys have chances to make plays and then once we get that back to where we want to in our standard that we believe we should have, then we can come back to the underneath stuff,” quarterback Patrick Mahomes said.

Mahomes mentioned that at the end of a response to being asked what he thought of the wide receiver unit so far through phase two of the offseason. What has stood out to him so far? The speed it takes to achieve the very thing Reid challenged him with.

“We’re fast,” Mahomes said. “I think that’s probably the thing that stands out the most. You talk about Xavier (Worthy), Rashee (Rice), Hollywood (Brown), (Tyquan) Thornton, (Jalen) Royals coming in, we have guys that can roll. Our job is to test the defenses down the field, and we have to get back to doing that if we want to open up other guys underneath.”

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Since losing Tyreek Hill following the 2021 season, Mahomes has tallied two Super Bowl mastering the underneath game. Last season he ranked 41st in Intended Air Yards and average Completed Air Yards, according to Next Gen Stats.

That is a far cry from his rookie season in 2018 when he ranked 10th and seventh in those two categories. What he had a lot of at that time was the speed of wide receivers such as Hill, Sammy Watkins, Demarcus Robinson, and Chris Conely.

Since then, there has been a steady decline in the deep areas of the field after Mahomes lost some of those reliable speedy weapons and defenses changed their approach to him. Towards the end of the 2024 season, though, the underneath stuff was not as reliable.

This was a combination of factors such as Travis Kelce showing his first real signs of aging and Rice coming down with a season-ending injury in week four. He no longer had the quick easy buttons that he needed especially with a struggling offensive line and big injuries hitting the wide receiver room.

At this point, there may be nothing the Chiefs can do about Kelce’s aging, which is OK so long as the offense is not built around him. Luckily for Kansas City, Rice, who was leading the NFL in receiving after week three, is looking like his old self just eight months after surgery.

“He looks like Rashee (Rice),” Mahomes said. “I think having – obviously having the injury, it sucked. Happening so early in the season, he was back like right when the offseason started and so he was up here working hard – extremely hard and he was back home working extremely hard. I was throwing with him in Dallas a little bit and then getting him back out here, there’s no limitations.”

“He’s out there playing, he’s making plays on the football field, he’s explosive, he looks fast. You saw the start of last season, I think he can be one of the best receivers in the league. Just to have him, to add with Xavier (Worthy) and Hollywood (Brown) and all these other guys that we have, it’s another position I think (General Manager Brett) Veach has done a great job of bringing in competition so that we can go out there and make a lot of plays happen.”

Life will be much easier for both Kelce and Rice if the likes of Worthy, Brown, and Royals can make plays in the deep and intermediate areas of the field. Perhaps Thornton and his 4.28 speed could be an under-the-radar option for that MVS-type role, too.

There are so many things that factor into the deep ball, starting with Mahomes having enough time to get the ball off. According to PFF, he ranked 34th in average Time to Throw. This may all be a moot point if Jaylon Moore or Joshua Simmons cannot lock down the left tackle position. To a lesser degree, Kingsley Suamataia will need to fill Joe Thuney’s shoes at left guard adequately as a converted tackle with great athleticism and size.

The Eagles defensive line was in Mahomes grill all Super Bowl long but the few times he did have enough to riffle off a deep ball, it paid off big time. Worthy was the silver lining of it all, hauling in eight balls on eight targets for 157 yards and two touchdowns Mahomes aired to the back of the endzone – one for 24 and the other for 50 yards. Offensive coordinator Matt Nagy says it has definitely been an emphasis this offseason, but now they have to prove it.

“We spend an inordinate amount of time breaking that (downfield throws) down this offseason and watching it together,” Nagy said. “For what it’s worth, at the end of the Eagles game – I know the score wasn’t what we wanted but there was a pretty good throw at the end of the year there to Xavier (Worthy) and I think that we’re excited to get back to some of that.”

“ … Talk is cheap, right? You can’t (just) talk about it; you have to be able to do it. I think it’s a mentality of every day in practice trying to make sure you stress not only the importance of talking about it but then doing it in practice. … Then their mindset too is just cutting it loose every now and then.”

If the offensive line comes together, Kansas City seems to have the weapons to bring back the ‘Legion of Zoom.’ With that will also come an opened-up underneath game and light boxes for the tailbacks. Ultimately, they will hope for an improved offense that finished 17th in yards and 15th in points per game last season, by far their worst mark since 2018 when Mahomes took over.