Improvised Lefty Pass Highlights Another Heroic Performance From The Unreal Patrick Mahomes

Monday night’s Chiefs-Broncos game was very, very fun, featuring more superhuman play from the impossibly good Patrick Mahomes. Mahomes completed 13 of 16 passes in the fourth quarter and engineered two long touchdown drives to bring the Chiefs back from a 23–13 deficit and into the lead. He completed passes on third-and-16, fourth-and-one, first-and-20, third-and-one, third-and-five, second-and-30, and third-and-seven. You truly take no pleasure in describing it this way, but he looked poised out there! The poise was just off the charts.

The best play of the game came on that third and 5, with 3:13 left on the clock and the Chiefs * not yet in Broncos territory. A failure to convert here would’ve probably meant a Broncos victory:

The Broncos brought six rushers and overloaded the offense’s right side with three blitzing linebackers, forcing Mahomes to roll to his left. With Shane Ray and Von Miller hot on his heels and not a second to spare, Mahomes transferred the ball to his left hand and shot-put a wobbly ball right on the money to Tyreek Hill, who squirted past the first down marker and out of bounds to keep the drive alive and stop the clock. That drive stayed screwy: Two plays and two penalties later, Mahomes faced a second-and-30, which he turned into a manageable third down with a 23-yard dart to Demarcus Robinson. Four plays later, Kareem Hunt found pay-dirt on a four-yard run to put the Chiefs ahead for good.

Since we’re already here, that clutch drive didn’t end the fireworks. Case Keenum led a heroic, doomed nine-play Broncos drive featuring some clutch plays of his own. A 12-yard completion on fourth-and-11 followed by a 36-yard completion on the very next play had the Broncos in business at the Chiefs’ 28-yard line with :30 on the clock and no timeouts. Momentum stalled there on three consecutive incompletions, including a bad Keenum overthrow aimed at a wide open Demaryius Thomas, who would’ve strolled into the end zone. With the Broncos facing a fourth-and-10 following a Kansas City timeout, Vance Joseph’s boys tried something bold:

The hook-and-lateral! Or, anyway, it looked like a hook-and-lateral, but it was also possibly just an incompletion. Either way, it was a fun and fitting end to a very good primetime football game. Patrick Mahomes is unbelievable.