The Kansas City Chiefs are off to an 8-0 start, extending their win streak to 14 games dating back to last season with their overtime win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Monday night. However, their offense hasn’t been as elite as we normally are accustomed to, ranking 10th in both yards and points per game.
Patrick Mahomes, particularly, has not put up the greatest stats either. He’s 14th in the NFL passing yards (1,942) and has thrown just 11 touchdowns while he’s on pace to throw the most interceptions (he has nine through eight games) and put up the lowest passer rating (90.1) of his career.
Despite whatever offensive concerns some might have about the Chiefs, Tom Brady isn’t hitting the panic button. In fact, he pushed back on the idea that the Chiefs’ offense lacks an identity during an appearance on “The Herd,” calling them a great situational team.
“I actually think they do have a great offensive identity,” Brady said. “Look, the game’s about winning. We talk about points, yards, penalties and defensive stops. To me, at the end of the game, do you have more points than the other team? That’s the maturity of a great team and a great organization. I played on a lot of teams. Some had a lot of offensive strengths. Some had a lot of defensive strengths. Some years we were kind of middle of the pack in both, but we played well situationally — third down, red area and two-minute [drill].”
Many metrics prove Brady’s assertion that the Chiefs’ offense plays well situationally. They’re first in the league in third-down conversion percentage (53.2%). They lead the league in time of possession in the second-half, suggesting that they dictate play in pivotal moments and know how to stifle potential rallies before they happen. Of course, those traits have helped K.C. go 6-0 in one-score games.
They’re also why Brady believes that Mahomes is still playing well this year, even if his individual stats might not say so.
“When you have Patrick Mahomes and it’s a one-score game, everyone’s always betting on the Chiefs,” Brady said. “Now, can someone get away from the Chiefs [and build a bigger lead]? I don’t know, because that defense plays so well. But I don’t think Patrick Mahomes is a lesser player because he doesn’t have 25 touchdowns at this point. It’s just he’s not playing with guys that can produce that from the receiver position.
“Patrick’s job is, and I covered him a few weeks ago, when I said the job of the quarterback is to manage all the variables of the game and the season — injuries, whether the rhythm of the offense — and then ultimately go out there and make the plays that put you in a position to win. That’s what winners do. Certainly, Patrick is that.”
Brady issued credit beyond Mahomes for the Chiefs’ consistency to perform in pivotal moments.
“He’s got Andy Reid there, who’s as great of a coach in NFL history, he’s on the kind of the Mount Rushmore of coaches,” Brady said. “So you have this consistency of this organization, from owner, general manager, coach, quarterback, and then to me, a defensive coordinator in [Steve Spagnuolo] that the way that defense plays puts them in a position to win every single week.”
Tom Brady describes what impresses him about the Chiefs
Kansas City’s defense has arguably been its strongest unit this season. It ranks fifth in yards allowed and fourth in scoring defense this year after a stifling playoff performance that keyed the Chiefs’ run to a second straight Super Bowl title last season.
The Chiefs made a major move to improve their offense, though, ahead of the trade deadline, acquiring standout wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins. After a quiet first game with the Chiefs, Hopkins seemed to be more at ease playing alongside Mahomes against the Buccaneers. He had eight receptions on nine targets for 86 yards and two touchdowns in Monday’s win.
Hopkins’ strong performance seemingly prompted him to make a bold comparison on social media, where he posted an image of Brady and Hall of Fame wide receiver Randy Moss together from their record-breaking 2007 season on the New England Patriots (Hopkins’ post has since been deleted). As Moss had an NFL record 23 receiving touchdowns in his first season with Brady, the seven-time Super Bowl winner explained how things easily clicked with him and the Hall of Fame receiver and how that might apply to Mahomes and Hopkins.
“The reality is, a great receiver, any receiver that’s a veteran, knows what a practice week looks like. They know how to run all the routes in the offense,” Brady said. “Now they may not know exactly where to line up, because everyone has their variations of words and descriptive words they use to get people aligned, to get the protections organized, and then to call routes. Some people use number systems. Some people use words that people have to memorize. Some people use a one-term word that tells everybody what to do.
“Kansas City does it kind of a myriad of different ways. Then, once DeAndre can really comprehend that, he’s going to say, ‘Oh, OK, that’s what I used to call this out cut in Tennessee, it was like this, or in Houston it was like this. In K.C., it’s like this, but I still know how to run the route.’ So you have these veteran players that have the experience to run the routes, to know the offenses. It’s not like, when he played for Tennessee the field was a different size. It’s the same rules, it’s the same routes. It’s ultimately just how you call them. So, once he gets out there, he’s confident in what he has, he’s going to look like DeAndre Hopkins always has — which is, he’s got good quickness, he’s got great catch radius, he’s got this ability in a situational place, to make catches like that, and certainly as a red area target.”
Tom Brady on DeAndre Hopkins building chemistry with Patrick Mahomes
Hopkins’ addition was much-needed for the Chiefs as top wide receiver Rashee Rice is out for the year, placing the onus on struggling first-round rookie Xavier Worthy to perform well before the addition of Hopkins. Brady noted that he almost always needed time to develop some sort of chemistry with rookie wide receivers, which wasn’t the case for the newly acquired veteran wide receivers he played with.
“There’s such a there’s such a learning curve that needs to happen from a rookie player,” Brady said. “Whereas when you get someone like DeAndre, you go, ‘Hey DeAndre, run a slant,’ and it looks like a slant. It looks great. It’s fluid, it’s smooth. You can plan it. So with a rookie, there’s such a learning curve.
“There’s so many things to learn that you’re never going to get that type of production in a short period of time with a rookie that you can get with a veteran, unless that’s just a very special rookie, and I’ve had some of those. Those guys, to me, are more anomalies than kind of what the norm is.”