Goddamn, Patrick Mahomes Looks Good

Hello, welcome to the Week 2 meeting of the Patrick Mahomes fan club. I know it’s early. But our boy is throwing bolts.

As I click publish, the Chiefs are up 21-0 on Pittsburgh, and Mahomes is 6-of-7 for 106 yards and three touchdowns. The first was a 15-yard strike to Chris Conley:

The second was an absolute dart to Travis Kelce. Look at the zip on this thing. The most obvious demonstration of a strong arm is the deep bomb, but it also shows up in closer quarters, like a laser that doesn’t allow a wide-open-receiver situation to become anything dicier.

There was a little too much zip on this one, honestly, but Kelce’s good hands are going to make Mahomes look very good, as are Andy Reid’s schemes. (Just look how open are both Kelce and Tyreek Hill at the top of the screen.)

The third TD was a little dump to Kareem Hunt. Just the sort of thing he talked about this week:

“Just stuff like that, where you don’t have to make the amazing play, you can just make the right read, put the ball into your playmaker’s hands and score big touchdowns that way. I definitely benefited from having that year to learn to not try to take the big shot at every single play.”

Mahomes now has seven TDs in five quarters of football this year. He clearly has the talent, and he says sitting for most of his rookie season allowed him to absorb the other stuff that goes into being a great quarterback.

“Just in preparation, the mental side of the game, I definitely benefited,” Mahomes said. “Being able to watch how teams made adjustments, and then how we made adjustments to the defense, how we’d figure out what blitzes they were bringing, how to protect them, it definitely helped me in the game [against the Chargers]. It’s knowing how to operate the huddle, and then being able to go out there and execute the game plan how it’s supposed to be run.”

Mahomes is going to be a star. And if not—well, if not, I will suffer no consequences for being wrong and no one will remember. Isn’t sports punditry great?