Kansas City Chiefs’ QB Patrick Mahomes surpassed Len Dawson’s 28,507 career passing yards on a play in the first half Thursday against the Ravens. BY EMILY CURIEL
The Super Bowl banners draped the field, a celebration after the storm passed to commemorate the Chiefs’ accomplishments just seven months earlier.
And, well, where were they?
Patrick Mahomes chose to stay in the locker room, a transparent and symbolic gesture that his teammates followed — and one Mahomes played out to the fullest when, after pregame introductions brought him onto the field at last, he sprinted past the banners as though they didn’t exist.
You can probably figure out that symbolism: Last season is last season.
But some three hours later, at the onset of this season, we received another reminder of how the Chiefs obtained those banners. How he obtained them.
All while he stood on the sideline.
The Chiefs beat the Ravens 27-20, a thrilling finish to the NFL season opener. The most critical moments of the game came with the ball not in the right hand of Patrick Mahomes, but with the legs and arm of his counterpart, Lamar Jackson.
OK, and maybe thanks to the shoe size of Baltimore tight end Isaiah Likely.
That’s the replay you’ll see frequently in the aftermath, and, to be fair, it’s a pretty compelling one: Likely caught a potential game-tying touchdown — or game-winning TD, with the Ravens set to go for two — but a review showed his toe barely landed on the edge of the white paint.
So that play ended the game.
But it did not determine the game.
That sequence came in the preceding 30 seconds — a half-minute that illustrated, once more, the separation between a two-time regular-season MVP and a three-time Super Bowl MVP. It’s a gap as wide as the busted coverage exploited Thursday by rookie receiver Xavier Worthy.
In case you needed a refresher that producing three Super Bowl banners in the last five years isn’t normal — that the way the Chiefs won them isn’t normal — here are those final 30-plus seconds.
Jackson completed a deep throw to Rashod Bateman, his first completion of more than 20 yards, and it was as though he was as surprised as anyone. The clock continued to run after Bateman fell to the ground inbounds, ticking under 40 seconds.
But rather than rushing his troops to the line of scrimmage to spike the football, Jackson shrugged his shoulders to the sideline, as if he was asking, “What next?”
While not providing him that context, I asked Chiefs right tackle Jawaan Taylor after the game what Mahomes was like in a two-minute drill.
He began with one word: “Calm.”
Then, a bit more: “He always thinking one play ahead.”
Again, he’s not commenting on Jackson.
I will.
Jackson got the Ravens to the 10-yard line and then he was a mess over the final half-minute — which, to his credit, he nearly overshadowed with a scramble and throw to the end zone on the final play.
But he whiffed beforehand. Once. And then twice.
Jackson had Likely open on a route to the back corner of the end zone on first down. Heck, Likely wouldn’t have even needed to tap his toes to secure it. On the next play, Jackson had wide receiver Zay Flowers wide open on a crossing route.
Incomplete.
The image circulating on social media is a zoomed-in cleat. It should be this: Flowers putting both hands on his helmet in disbelief that he wasn’t holding a football in the end zone.
That sequence decided the game.
It’s a sequence that, more to the point here, contrasts with everything about the guy standing on the other sideline.
Which returns us to the reminder.
Mahomes has won three Super Bowls on the backs of game-winning drives, every one of them late in the fourth quarter or overtime. He is not a mistake-free player, but man if he doesn’t come through so frequently.
In the result.
But in everything preceding it, too.
Just look at Jackson on Thursday. Then look at last year’s Chiefs playoff run. They came from behind in the fourth quarter to beat the Bills in Buffalo. They sealed the win in Baltimore when Mahomes — following a play request he made the night before — hit Marquez Valdez-Scantling, of all players, for 32 yards.
Then came the Super Bowl. A have-to-have-it game-tying drive in regulation. A game-winning drive in overtime that included a fourth-down conversion and a play on which Mahomes audibled, on his own, to a play the Chiefs hadn’t run all year.
In the midst of chaos, calm.
We also saw the opposite unfold Thursday. Did any of those final 30-some seconds at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium showcase a quarterback in control? It looked like two nervous quarterbacks — the one in the game, and the one whose heart-rate tracker shows his heart rate spikes when he’s standing on the sideline, not when he’s in the huddle.
We didn’t need opening night to prove Mahomes is the better quarterback.
But it proved why.
Or reminded us why.
There was a lot to like about the Chiefs’ offense Thursday. Their red-zone execution was not one of them. It appears that Worthy, the rookie first-round pick, will have a real effect on defenses, and that’s not just a comment on the two touchdowns he scored against Baltimore.
The Ravens appeared intent on taking him out of the game, and he’d yet to even play in one.
The Chiefs were at 7.1 yards per play. That was better than all but one of their games last season.
It’s a better collection of ingredients than they had a year ago. Just the same, Mahomes capped that year with precisely what Jackson could not: He found a way to make the recipe work.
Mahomes is unmatched in most ways, but none more obvious than that way.
Obvious even as he’s standing on the sideline.
