Patrick Mahomes: Game Manager
 

So i re-watched the 2nd half last night just for grins.

And during the game I was just aggravated that we simply wouldn't push the ball. But on re-watch and after listening to the post-game, it's clear that this was Mahomes just going full Alex Smith out there.

He wasn't concerned anymore about scoring points. He (and Andy) were wholly content bleeding clock and leaning on their lead. He knew that if he just didn't make a mistake, the Ravens weren't going to come back and win it. So he took ZERO risks.

Contrast that with how he played on the first two drives. And hell, the throw he made on 3rd down when they had to have it. He HAD big plays. He HAD yards and probably points on the board. But he dialed that risk/reward calculus waaaaaaay down because he wanted to make sure there were zero mistakes.

And I think part of it was because he knew that if he needed to pick things back up, he could. He would. He was in complete command of the game and game script.

It was part of a continued evolution from Mahomes. If he needs to breath fire, he will. But when he doesn't need to, he knows how to just keep the game under control. He can be Rodgers OR he can be Brady.

He's a scary scary dude even when he isn't.

I just dont understand the thought process behind "not needing to."

This team should never be content. Too many games reach uncomfortable stages because we get content. The game was only ever 10 points of separation for 3 quarters. I can't imagine a world in which that little of a lead should ever be considered "enough."

Yesterday, I legitimately thought I was watching Tom Brady with how much control he had over the game. It was downright horrifying.

The Balt D didn’t stop us , we mostly took ok pity on them.

As soon as the game got within one score Mahomes did what he had to do.

I disagree a bit. It's a whole different gane if Zay doesn't fumble. We had PLENTY of chances to grow a good lead and just kept farting around. Reminded me of the Eagles game but Lamar simply wouldn't accept the gifted win.

I know this might piss people off but I feel like what I saw in the 2nd half was the early 2000's Patriots. Destroy them with defense, win the field position game (Tommy finically got one) and play efficient offense.

They made all the smart plays yesterday and killed the "MVP" QB

Sure, but even with the Zay TD, what DJ is saying is they'd have turned it back up.

I'd have liked to have put another TD on the board for sure, but at some point, you have to play the hand you get dealt.

Even before the game got to 1 score and Mahomes hit MVS to seal the game, the Chiefs had at least 2 opportunities to maintain a drive and put the game away but they went 3 and out. That isn't game management. This offense is just hurting. How many games did we see this year that looked a lot like last night but didnt have the other team fumbling at the 1 yard line and instead took the lead? Then when it was Mahomes' time to go and win it, the winning part didn't happen.

They were pretty backed up then, IIRC.

Agreed. Slow the game down when you're up three scores, but not when you're up by 10 coming out of halftime.

if you want a glimpse of what it could have looked like if we were overly aggressive, look no further than the lions. they didnt know when to take their foot off the gas, and there are times when you just need to do that. it cant always be go go go aggressive ball

I dunno if that was really the case though. They shoulda kicked the FG for sure, but you play your opponent. We all knew that Detroit D would eventually give up points.

Hopefully but it was a trend all season that we struggled in the 2nd half to score. Thankfully Lamar isn't who Ravens fans said he was.

When the game gets tight, they can remain relaxed. Instead of hero ball, running up the score. Then feeling stressed when things get a little out of hand. Cough...Ravens

It's not that they weren't scoring because they didn't need to.

They weren't scoring because they put the risk knob to 0. And the Ravens defense is very good.

If you're going to score on them, you're going to have to make higher risk plays (the flip to Kelce on 3rd, for example). But the squad seemed to understand that the Ravens, if given a long field, were going to make a mistake before they score. They knew the Ravens couldn't drive a long field.

So rather than risk giving them a short field, they chose to play the field position game, force them to execute for a full drive and get it into the end zone.

And Baltimore simply never could. Every time they got to the red zone required a big play. We went into a shell on defense AND offense. Because it's pretty damn hard to do one but not the other. If you're going play the way we were playing defensively, you need to complement that offensively and continue to force them into long drives.

All of this is negated by the MVS play. That's kind of the point.

Absolutely. But (and I think this is what DJ is getting at) when we did end up losing those games, it usually was because the offense did something stupid and put the D in bad spots.

Did we though? We went for it on 4th down at like their 20 yard line. I dont see how we turned the risk knob to 0. We were struggling.

The 4th down call early in the game was the right call too...unlike Campbell's biffs.

Those first few drives were ****ing magical. The Ravens had great coverage at times and it didn't even matter, the throws were just better. It's as good as we've seen this offense when it's not just outrunning the defense.

I'm surprised the Ravens backed off their blitzes on a few plays, they were blowing up shit for a little while.... I know the Chiefs were also keeping Pacheco in there to pick it up and they were trying to confuse Mahomes, so obviously a lot of cat and mouse.

I'm good with the 4th down call. I'd have challenged the Kelce catch, I think we gain some yardage and make the 4th down easier though.

He's become a chameleon, capable of compartmentalizing everything that goes on around him to best set the team up to WIN...

In future years, we will have groups that aren't nearly as good on defense... and we will see the offense more aggressive. Whatever it takes to improve the odds of winning, Mahomes is gonna do.

Right now, as he has been saying since Cincinnati, protecting the ball is at the top of the to-do list.

Exactly.

If Zay scores, it's not that we would've 'flipped a switch' - Patrick simply would've been willing to turn the risk knob back up a bit. He'd have been willing to make some of those throws that MIGHT go the other way if he doesn't execute them perfectly.

If there was some zero-risk shot play even when we were playing it tight, Mahomes would've taken it. But the Ravens defense is really damn good (and played like it) so that play wasn't there. So he just kept taking the low risk stuff unless/until he had to do otherwise.

And with the game on the line and really zero risk, he took the shot to MVS. Because if its picked, it's an arm punt. Even if it's incomplete, we punt and they get the ball back at about the 2 minute mark with zero timeouts) vs getting it at about 1:50 with zero timeouts had we taken an underneath throw to keep the clock running).

It was all about playing risk-free football until the Ravens proved they could overcome that. They simply never did.

I really didn't like it because it was a free possession, so take the free points... but was totally content with 17-7, because who knows what happens if they make a FG there and how the Ravens play calling changes.... was just happy to hold them off the board and tack on the 3 to end the half.

"They" didn't fumble. I dislike this narrative that they get the credit for an absolute STUD play by Sneed.

The number 2 defense did what number two defenses do:

TD?

DENIED

Look...I get what he's saying but ultimately I think it's a cop out fir just how bad they reacted to Baltimores adjustments on defense. It also allowed our defense to be on the field all half and the Ravens moved the ball at will in the 2nd half.

It was a stud play that was awarded by the same dumb****ery that caused Hardman to fumble at the 1 against the Bills. Do you credit the Bills for that fumble too?

Started at our own 20 both times.

Both times with a 2 score lead in the 4th quarter with the clock as an ally. Those 2 drives took 6 minutes off the clock.

Those are successful drives and drives where there was never a chance we were going to give them a short field.

That's winning game management.

Only thing I disagree about yesterday was not taking the FG on 4th and 1 which made me believe that after Lamar's only TD Andy thought it could be a possible shootout.

Just take the points Andy. Omenihu gave us a great turnover in FG range and we wasted it by going for it against by far the leagues best rush defense that has done well all year in those short yardage situations.

Not getting points there hurt. Get what you can with this defense bc it's gonna be hard for any offense to score TD's on us

Our offense isn't the fire breathing dragon it was before. The Raven defense is probably better than our offense. Even when we were playing well in the first half, it wasn't exactly just blasting around.

Of course we'd all love to have more. The results of the game show we didn't "need" it. By not taking risks we instead were going to force Lamar to drive the field on our elite defense. The Ravens D was able to hold us from scoring, but they were never able to get that game-changing takeaway to make things easy for Lamar. I love it.

Correct.

How many of those games were games we were controlling on defense but we gave the opponent a short field or a defensive score?

We lost because we wouldn't dial the risk knob down, keep the clock moving and let the defense bring it home.

We handled the game against Baltimore differently than we did the games against, say, Philly or LV.

And that's why the outcome was different. This team is winning with what they have and using it extremely well.

I will take a win if it's 2-0. Style points are for arena football!

It was literally the gameplan the Elway Broncos rolled out against Grbac and the Chiefs in the 98 playoffs.

To paraphrase Shannon Sharpe, “if we didn’t turn it over in our territory, that offense just wasn’t capable of putting up 7 against our defense. Our plan was to beat Martyball with Martyball.”

That always salted the wound growing up, but damn if daring Lamar to beat us with his arm didn’t work wonders. We also got a Marty playoff performance from Harbaugh who completely abandoned his #1 rushing offense for no reason in the second half.

That was earlier in the game when we still weren't sure what Baltimore had on offense.

I don't think we came into this game expecting to do what we did. I think we decided in the 2nd half that the adjustments to make were to take the air out of the football and force Baltimore to work to win it.

If 4th down play happens in the 3rd quarter, we take the points, IMO. But at that point in the game, we were still feeling out the game script.

those plays aren't within a million mile of each other.

Flowers stuck that ball out like a whack a mole, and Sneed flew in like a ninja and five fingered the ball.


....the true dagger was the INT.

Guys, the 2018 Pats offense wasn't a juggernaut whatsoever. Very comparable to us here in fact. A couple HOFers, good OL, and some JAGs.

One week against us, they scored 38 because our defense stunk and that's what they had to do. Then in the Super Bowl, they scored 13 and protected the ball because that's all they needed to do.

Just win playoff games however you can.

the LV game is an amazing example. our defense was shutting them down but we just had to be dumb and give them easy fields with dumb decisions on offense. def a game where if we just played through our D like we did yesterday, we would have won

I thought it was a tad bit too conservative. Would have liked a few conversions for first because our defensive guys tongues were hanging out at the end there. But hey, it all worked out!

OP-great point

they knew what they could get, then made them pay with the MVS throw. Was that the longest of the day?

Then boom. Game. It is amazing that the Chiefs only scored 17 pts in an AFCCG and won.

Even a flawed Mahomes performance is unbeatable...

Yeah, on the road, I wanted him to take the points. Keep the crowd quiet and don't give them any momentum back after you get a free possession.

I thought that play was a mistake but ultimately I think that play was also part of the learning process that lead to the conservative 2nd half.

Have you not watched enough early Chiefs game this season to see what happens in close games when players don't execute?

So why play like we can just execute at will? Even Mahomes has shown he can't execute at will this year. If it's not there, dont take it, but dont completely remove the option for it to be there.

Chiefs just beat the 2nd best team in the NFL in their house.

The game plan was just fine.

That's not what we did or would have done.

We would've simply amended the number of risks we would've taken knowing full well that we couldn't execute at will.

And the reason we were unwilling to take many risks on offense was because failure to execute could've come at any time creating the turnover that could've given Baltimore the life they needed to do something on offense that they WEREN'T able to do without the benefit of a short field.

It was complementary football.

You know, the stuff that everyone said Reid couldn't do for a couple decades. He coached the hell out of that game, IMO.

They couldn't run the ball at all. Baltimore took away the short passing game. Locked down Kelce.

Outside of the last pass Mahomes threw for 36 yards in the second half. Thankfully they were finally able to win over the top when they had to have it.

No, if Zay would have scored Mahomes would have opened it back up. There was no reason to push it with a 2 score lead. They knew Lamar wasn't reading the Defense. Their offense was 3 big plays, all broken coverages or should be sacks yesterday. They knew Lamar would make mistakes like throwing into triple coverage. Hell, Bolton had one go right through his hands for another pick and Lamar was lucky he caught his own ball and it wasn't picked by Reid. We were in complete control.

I came to say this. It typically takes a team effort to make it to the Super Bowl. Mahomes played it safe and leaned on the D yesterday because he could. Tom Brady made a career of that kind of thing. His rough averages in Championship Games are 260 yards, 1.45 TDs and 1.2 INTs and his numbers get much better in Super Bowls.

I dont think the option was there in the 2nd half. The Ravens D adjusted. We couldn't get anything on the ground. And our YAC was completely minimized. They wanted us to throw downfield. They wanted us to make a mistake and give Lamar a short field. We wouldn't let them. We forced them to earn it. And they failed. That was the gameplan.

Build a lead, sit on it, force them to drive the length of the field to score points, and watch them crack under the pressure. And that's exactly what happened.

And the Ravens play a ton of trail coverage and are very very good at it.

An underthrow on a deep shot is getting picked against Baltimore. It's how they use their coverage. Their guys are constantly in that trail coverage looking for a ball they can undercut. Even the play to MVS looked for all the world like a ball Maulet was hoping to undercut. Had the blitz gotten home just a little sooner and kept Mahomes from being able to put that high arc on it and sail it out that deep, that may have been exactly what happened.

The Ravens were hoping we'd get aggressive and make a mistake. Mahomes refused to oblige them.

Mahomes had 91 QBR yesterday, AKA a near perfect game.

I get it, because crazy shit happens... and crazy shit is the only way the Ravens scored yesterday. After the holding penalties in the first half though and some of the really tight coverage and that one dude flying around.... I can see why they wanted to hand it off or get the ball out quickly.

I wanted to see more ~4-7 yard stuff to Kelce and Rice instead of so many screens and the lack of creativity in the run game... but end of the day, the Ravens offense just didn't have it.

If it's say 27-17 I'd probably say... sure, they've scored a few times and could make it closer again. Seven points at halftime though and through 3 quarters..... meh, that offense probably isn't more than doubling their output, especially considering the first TD was such a broken play.

The Ravens were working damn hard for first downs, much less getting into and scoring in the red zone.

Sure, it puts pressure on the defense and they were playing with fire a bit, but I get why they did it and it's amazing they can lean on the defense like that.

The 4-7 yard shit over the middle was exactly what I DIDN'T want to see.

That's where balls get knocked into the air for interceptions. Or guys end up in the middle of 4 dudes flying downfield to knock the ball out.

I wanted to see a couple deep shots to try to open up the sideways/screen/run game a little bit. But barring that, the LAST thing I wanted to see were balls in the short/intermediate areas over the middle. The juice doesn't justify the squeeze there, IMO.

I'm the opposite. Those quick slants over the middle are like the most indefensible passes in the game, IMO. I mean, Tom Brady made a ****ing career out of those plays and you knew there were coming because his number one guys were guys like Welker and Edelman, but you just couldn't stop it.

I thought the same thing. He's really grown this year and learned how to win even when he's not the one who is doing the heavy lifting so to speak.

Brady and Manning both won Super Bowls when their offenses were kind of shit. In their cases, it tended to be toward the end of their careers when they were the issue. The fact that Mahomes has already learned how to turn the gunslinger mentality on and off as appropriate should be terrifying for the rest of the league.

It's not indefensible when the opponent is willing to trade 5 yards for a kill shot and has been delivering them all game.

It takes one guy to slow up on that route because he's tired of getting hit to turn the game around. It takes one play where the ball is separated from the receiver and bounces up into the maelstrom to give them the turnover they need.

As a general rule I don't disagree with you, but that's exactly my point. This game was ALL about Andy not coaching to a predetermined script. All about not using the general rule.

In THIS game, what he did was the right thing to do. Because those guys were laying the wood out there. They WANTED this game to be played in between the hashes and underneath the safeties.

We refused to give them what they wanted. I absolutely believe that was what led to some of those frustration penalties.

I think some of the 1st down runs early in the 2nd half were too conservative. We had too many 3rd and longs entire 2nd half.

Later in 4th qtr it's OK to bleed clock but we could have used one more score. The game was too close to turtle up that early.

This was very much a Marty-Ball\Bradyesque type of game. The decision to go for it on 4th down was a good one. We had been slamming the ball at will and when you need less than 1 yard in a chance to get 7 vs 3 in that situation I had no problems with the decision nor the call. The Ravens D happened to make a play that time so tip your hat to them.Had we been struggling to move the ball or struggling to stop them up to that point then obviously you kick the 3. Had we not gone for it, most of the people bitching about not kicking would have been bitching that we didn't go for it.

The 2nd half was just smart football. We were pinned deep most of the half and Andy\Mahomes were not going to chance making a mistake deep in our own territory and gift the Ravens any kind of short field, Pick 6, scoop & score, etc. Our defense was handling them and up by 10 we chose to make the Ravnes have to beat a defense they had not shown they could beat up to that point vs. getting scared and forcing something when we didn't need too.

This was an evolutionary step for both Patrick and our defense. We have shown the last few games how dynamic our entire team can be and sometimes being dynamic means playing boring, ball control offense and letting the defense hold a 10 point lead.

Let's give the Ravens credit. I think Mahomes and Reid realized early in the second half that it would be difficult to move the ball. It's not like they went fetal without trying.
Baltimore made adjustments after the first several possessions. They ramped up their physical (dirty) play. They weren't missing tackles. Putting more pressure on Mahomes with the pass rush. We still have the same personnel as the regular season. Same shortcomings at the #2 WR position. It's Kelce, Rice, and Pacheco. Pacheco averaged 2.8 YPC in the game.

The Chiefs played smart in the second half offensively. Did what they needed to protect the lead. Baltimore's defense had a lot to do with it though. We should be proud the offense didn't turn it over against the league's top defense at forcing turnovers. That wasn't easy.

I don’t know. Yesterday seemed like a gift between the van noy penalty, then another penalty right after to give us 30 free yards. Then the zay flowers taunting followed by the fumble and then Lamar endzone INT and we still only won by a score.

Who gives a shit...we won.

And those penalties you're talking about were 100% penalties.

Also, if it hasn't already been mentioned, keep in mind that twice when we were pinned deep and went 3 and out, CEH missed 2 key blocks that led to sacks.

Kelce got under their skin, and won the mental battle.


He was talking serous smack.

I think they learned a lot from the Cincy game. Take the points when they are there, even if it’s half a dozen fg’s, and don’t force plays that lead to turnovers and lost possessions. The defense has proven all season long that we can rely on them.

I don’t mind us going for it on 4th and a foot, but I would have been ok with taking the FG there. I kind of wish Reid would have challenged the spot on third down before that, because even if we didn’t get the call we would have had a full timeout to come up with a play on that 4th down.

Reid and Mahomes both played a lower-risk second half for sure, but the Ravens keyed in on stopping our running game and switched to playing more man in the second. The Ravens adjusted.

We basically tore apart their vaunted Cover 4 and Cover 6 zone stuff in the first half. That's what Kelce is built for and Andy outclassed Macdonald in that first half.

That's what losing teams do.
That's what we did when we were losing.

We don't do that and we win. We won.
Not doing stupid shit is a big reason why...

Had we challenged that call not only would we have lost but we also would have lost a challenge we might have needed later.

The Ravens were shitting down their legs, going to a strategy of don't give them any momentum, worked.

In the other game Detroit absolutely gave the 49ers momentum with their mistakes.

Yeah, that's the same shit teams used to do against New England in big moments and it drove everyone nuts. But, now as we sit here, I get it now.

Teams melt against a poised, well-oiled machine like the Chiefs for a reason.

How many times do we hear the old cliche that the team that makes the fewest mistakes usually wins the game?

Yep...got greedy and cocky...cost themselves what should have been an easy win.

Just because they are penalties doesn’t mean we weren’t lucky in getting them lol. They were poorly prepared and poorly coached for that game. No one could have predicted those dumb penalties which again is why I don’t necessarily agree with the OP or this stance of we were playing and not scoring points because that was the game plan?

Never, in all of sports commenting, has anyone ever said "Great win. All that stupid shit they did was a big reason why..."

We might have lost a challenge, but we would have had that much more time to come up with a different play to get that conversion. If we get that conversion, it’s likely 24-7 at half.

I'm 50/50 on it. On one hand, it stopped working after awhile and it was frustrating seeing us continue to attempt something that just didn't work.

On the other hand, the Ravens were trying to force the offense to play riskier by taking away our easy stuff. They wanted a turnover or defensive score. Its what they've done all year. And we just didn't budge. In this specific game, it was the right call.

No matter how remote a challenge means we have a chance to overturn it.

No challenge = no chance to overturn it.

We didn't need a challenge later. All we did was waste an opportunity....

The Ravens had a clear tripping penalty in the endzone go uncalled and the hold on the Rice td was bullshit. That's what, 6 points off the board?

The Ravens absolutely had no poise, you could see that the pressure and the moment was to big for them. Especially Lamar which was rubbing off on the rest of the team.