Patrick Mahomes had a bizarre day in Chiefs’ win. Here’s what happened and what’s next

Moments after he dropped to a knee for one final snap, Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes peeked across the line of scrimmage and spotted Broncos safety Justin Simmons walking toward him. They exchanged a post-game handshake before the clock technically reached zero for a Chiefs’ 27-24 win, and then Mahomes turned his head toward the Denver sideline.

He would greet quarterback Russell Wilson and then a few other Broncos. But eventually, through the disarray of an NFL post-game setting, he found one of his own teammates: Marquez Valdes-Scantling.

Mahomes had something different for him.

An apology.

“I just told him I let him down today,” Mahomes said.

The ensuing exercise is probably not one completed in many NFL cities. It’s something of a luxury to even go through it, but Super Bowl contenders are graded on such a curve. So here we are, critical of the quarterback after a victory in which his final stat line read as this:

29 of 42, 328 yards, 3 touchdowns, 1 interception and a 106.1 passer rating.

Look, it wasn’t that Mahomes was terrible Sunday. It wasn’t even the amount of throws he missed. Instead, it was the abnormal manner in which he stacked the errant passes together, like a superhero who had left the house without his cape.

Mahomes endured one of the most truly bizarre games of his career, considering he was fine for most of the game otherwise. Fine in the first quarter. Fine in the second, though an interception. But for a three-drive sequence in the third and sporadic spots elsewhere, Mahomes occupied a new role Sunday.

The problem.

For five years, he has been the Band-Aid to the Chiefs’ wounds. For a collection of about six throws, and maybe that’s being too generous, he created the gash itself.

The Chiefs led 13-10 at halftime against a struggling football team waiting to be put out of its collective misery, and Mahomes instead offered them hope. He opened the quarter with six incompletions, one more unusual than the next.

On those six throws, four of his intended receivers were wide open. Twice he missed Valdes-Scantling on deep passes. Those should’ve been touchdowns. Once he missed a nearly-uncovered Skyy Moore. That, too, had a chance at a touchdown. Mahomes threw another ball well behind Kelce, and then he forced one more to his tight end that darn well could have been intercepted.

After the game, he was asked what part of his game felt satisfying, and he replied, “There’s not a lot satisfying for me.”

I’ll underscore once more that the grading system has changed around here since NFL commissioner Roger Goodell read Mahomes’ name from the 2017 draft card.

But after the game, as I walked into the post-game locker room and news conference, the objective was pretty clear: Find out what the hell happened to the quarterback. Was it an injury? He had absorbed a hit with impact that prompted a limp in the second quarter. That had to be it, right?

“I felt like I was fine,” he said.

OK, well, then what?

“It was just my mechanics,” he said. “I lost my mechanics in that second half, and I was trying to find a way to get back to them. I think you saw even with some of the completions — at least I felt like — my feet weren’t in the right spot. I was throwing off my back foot. I think whenever I get in that mode is whenever I can struggle.”

At some point, an NFL news conference Sunday evening felt as through we were talking to an MLB starting pitcher who cruised through four innings only to suddenly lose his mechanics in the fifth. Ask those guys, and they’ll tell you it’s hard to reverse course on the fly. Before you have time to get the feel back, enough baseballs have sailed over the fence that it’s too late.

Mahomes has the benefit of engaging in this conversation after a win — and give him credit, because he was not only willing but almost eager to engage in the conversation.

But in doing so, he said he never felt like he fully got his mechanics back, even as the fourth-quarter results improved. With about four minutes to play, as they were breaking the huddle, Mahomes told Valdes-Scantling to run a third-down route to the sticks and then turn on an out route.

He did.

And then Mahomes left it short.

“That’s a throw I’ve thrown a million times,” Mahomes said, voluntarily naming the play as an example before being prompted for one.

The second-half sequence was exceptional enough that it’s natural to wonder whether it’s a long-term concern. To answer that, you first have to know the problem itself.

He does. The footwork. The most basic of fundamentals. And it’s not the first time we’ve seen Mahomes battle with his footwork. In fact, it’s the first thing he mentions when you ask him in a training-camp setting what he spends the most time working to master.

But Sunday provided a reminder that it can re-appear at any moment, and that’s probably not something you want to be reminded of two weeks out from the playoffs.

Your biggest weapon can lose its blade, even if momentarily.

Or maybe it is. This is a time-will-tell scenario. If anything, though, all others involved — from his teammates on offense to the collective on the other side of the football — can digest the lesson, too. It is counterproductive to assume the quarterback will do the heavy lifting all the time just because he has done the heavy lifting most of the time.

The Bills are too good for that. The Bengals, too.

The Chiefs, as well.

If the quarterback’s feet are on track.