Patrick Mahomes is entering his Donovan McNabb era

[Realbaddog]

Found this, didn't see it posted prior:

The Kansas City Chiefs can point to a myriad of issues behind their offensive struggles, including Matt Nagy’s playcalling, but their rapid disarmament over the last two years has hit them where it hurts. If you’re searching for a culprit for Kansas City’s offensive demise and fall from top 10 in scoring for the first time since 2016, their wideouts have already been caught holding the bloody knife on the gridiron over the Super Bowl champions’ body. Patrick Mahomes, king of the tight spiral, discovered this season that he, too, is subject to the whims of his wideouts. For the second time in a matter of weeks, a Chiefs receiver has become the main NFL Twitter protagonist after butchering a miraculous Mahomes play on national television.

Kadarius Toney provided a glimpse into what type of season this would be in the Chiefs season-opening loss to the Detroit Lions. That night featured a perfect trinity of drops by Toney including his pièce de résistance in the final two minutes, on a bobbled pass that should have put the Chiefs in position to win. Lightning struck again when Marquez Valdes-Scantling dropped a deep bomb inside Philly’s 5 on one of the final plays of their Week 11 loss to the Eagles. On Sunday, Toney treated the line of scrimmage like an abstract concept, lined up offsides and wiped out the highlight of his and Kelce’s careers. The Chiefs offense is spiraling and the calls are coming from inside the house.

The root of this period of discontent has been Kansas City’s neglect in drafting or signing an elite receiver for Mahomes. It’s analogous to New England’s miscalculations in evaluating offensive skill positions during Tom Brady’s twilight with the Pats refusing to draft a wideout in the first round.

Reid has experimented with this method of team-building around cardboard cutout receivers before and it failed. Welcome to the Donovan McNabb experience. During Reid’s early years at the helm of the Philadelphia Eagles, he surrounded McNabb with flotsam at receiver, developed Brian Westbrook into an amorphous multi-purpose back who could create splash plays at receiver or in the run game.

The McNabb era in Philadelphia was defined by McNabb’s hero ball despite receivers who dropped the ball like they had carpal tunnel. The one season Philadelphia was gracious enough to bless him with Terrell Owens resulted in Philadelphia advancing past the NFC Championship in their fourth try and reaching the Super Bowl in McNabb and T.O.’s only full season together.

It was a near perfect storm that resulted in McNabb setting career-highs in yardage, yards-per-attempt, touchdowns and quarterback rating. Mahomes’ career has been the inverse of McNabb’s. He is a superior quarterback in nearly every way above the shoulders than McNabb, but Philadelphia’s bayonet offense forced McNabb to do considerably more of the dirty work than Mahomes has had to do with Tyreek Hill, Sammy Watkins and Travis Kelce creating separation downfield in the Chiefs high-octane attack.

McNabb was haunted by the follies of his wide receivers. Freddie Mitchell thanking god for his hands was the highlight of his Eagles career. James Thrash dropped a crucial pass in the 2004 NFC title game that cost the Eagles a trip to the Super Bowl, months before they acquired Owens. Staley and Todd Pinkston were denizens of Drop City during that championship loss to the Rams, while McNabb gutted it out for nearly three quarters with injured ribs.

In Owens’ shadow, Mitchell and Pinkston were the only Eagles receivers to reel in touchdowns for Philadelphia during their Super Bowl campaign, catching a grand total of three. Philadelphia should erect a monument to the heavy lifting McNabb did with such a mediocre cast of receivers.

During his stint in Philly, Westbrook, Pinkston, Chad Lewis, L.J. Smith, Thrash, Staley and Reggie Brown were his leading receivers. There isn’t a single 1,000-yard receiving season between the three of them. Not a single one. McNabb molded masterpieces from clay and dung.

Kansas City’s contemporary receivers highlight the importance of having competent hands in your lineup. For years, NFL cognoscenti have made it their mission to minimize the effect a great receiving corps can have on an offense spearheaded by a quarterback deity. Great offense is a polytheistic exercise. If anything, Kansas City’s shortcomings should only strengthen Tyreek Hill’s MVP case.

One season of this is enough. Kansas City can’t afford to prolong Mahomes and the passing attack’s suffering. If this season has taught us anything, it’s that while Reid has secured a slot in Canton after starting over in Kansas City, we should put a lot more respect on Donovan McNabb’s name and it should serve as a warning for Reid not to repeat his mistakes of that era.

Link: https://deadspin.com/patrick-mahomes...efs-1851094149

[staylor26]

Originally Posted by TEX

The "Goof Troop" abides...

Specifically which ****ing poster, more or less "group of people", has said that Mahomes is the problem you ****ing coward?

I'll wait...

[chiefzilla1501]

Originally Posted by Chris Meck

Again, I don't think that's it at all.

When you're paying your QB the percentage of the cap we are, you're going to have to draft and develop your weapons because you can't afford to pay top of the market price for them.

This group hasn't panned out, but the expectation was for the young players to take reasonable steps forward. To have sustained success, you HAVE to have young players develop, improve, and become your next batch of stars.

This group of players all just shit the bed simultaneously.

I just don’t buy that. At every single position, including this year at LT and DE, we committed to developing young guys while bringing in bandaids. These bandaids do not stop us from developing our young guys. It didn’t when we eased in karlaftis and probably won’t as we ease in FAU and wanya.

This team knew it was a long shot Reid would ask rashee to do all things by rookie season. He is wildly exceeding those expectations while predictably being held back in many ways. We walked into the season betting on Toney and skyy to be legit 1 and 2 options. This was less about shitting the bed simultaneously and more about elevating these guys to roles they were totally unequipped for. Our so called youth movement was one guy (skyy) who optimistically could be effective at one niche (he didn’t but even if he did, it would’ve been a specialized role) and an undrafted wr that everyone else passed on. The irony is the one that worked was rice who unexpectedly had his role elevated very quickly

So that means we put all our eggs in the basket of a big bet that toney would be capable or reliable enough to be wr1 or the idea that we could continue to make it work with all “niche” guys. The latter I can somewhat understand but that was still a big miscalc.

[O.city]

Their "youth movement" was Toney, Moore, Rice at WR.

Rice has hit, the others haven't.

Now we're gonna have to pump resources into the skill positions, which is great. What won't be great is the same idiots here bitching when the defense gives up more than 21 points.

[staylor26]

Originally Posted by O.city

Their "youth movement" was Toney, Moore, Rice at WR.

Rice has hit, the others haven't.

Now we're gonna have to pump resources into the skill positions, which is great. What won't be great is the same idiots here bitching when the defense gives up more than 21 points.

Exactly.

[MahomesMagic]

Originally Posted by TEX

The "Goof Troop" abides...

The same people attacked anyone who dared to say we could use a vet WR that could run the routes correctly and catch the ball.


It's so easy, anyone can do it!


Of course the issue was going into this season in 5 NFL drafts, Brett Veach had hit on ZERO WR's that would be a #1, #2, or a #3 on most teams.


Aren't you glad we spent a prime year of Patrick Mahomes and probably the last year of Chris Jones and one of the last years of Travis Kelce "developing" Skyy Moore?!

Yay!