If you wanted to argue that Patrick Mahomes and the 14-3 Kansas City Chiefs have been hot all season, I would certainly listen. The Chiefs have only lost three times during the 2022 season, once each to the No. 2 and No. 3 seeds in the AFC – the Buffalo Bills and Cincinnati Bengals, respectively – and once in a hard-to-explain game against the Indianapolis Colts. Even so, Chiefs fans were looking for a dominant performance against the Las Vegas Raiders in their season finale, showing that all parts of the team were working at the playoff level.
Patrick Mahomes Doing Patrick Mahomes Things
The Chiefs may have been winning games consistently, but some mistakes had been making teams with a record below .500 be able to stay close in games. Those mistakes – specifically turnovers and poorly timed penalties – meant that the Chiefs’ last completely dominant performance was way back in Week 7 against the San Francisco 49ers.
Sure, there have been players during this stretch that have been on fire – Patrick Mahomes for most of it and Jerick McKinnon for all of it – but kicker Harrison Butker has been wayward since his ankle injury, and Kadarius Tony hadn’t broken out as expected in the continued absence of Mecole Hardman.
That all changed against the Raiders. The defense has been sneaky good for weeks, but even they stepped it up a notch in getting pressure on Jarrett Stidham and making him miss throws. Obviously, Stidham is no Joe Burrow or Josh Allen, but the continued great work by the defense, Mahomes taking what was given to him and not forcing throws, Toney being that Swiss Army knife of a weapon that the Chiefs were expecting, and Butker making all of his kicks has to send Andy Ried into the bye week (given to the No. 1 seed) with supreme confidence.
Heck, the Chiefs even had time to unleash the first spinning huddle in the history of the NFL on the Raiders, a play that would have gone for a touchdown if not for a harsh holding call.
The #Chiefs are spinning in circles in the huddle pic.twitter.com/xWF6prnqZt
— @BourbonAndBeer (@BourbonAndBeer) January 7, 2023
The Patrick Mahomes MVP talk will continue to grow – as it should – as he broke the record previously held by Drew Brees for most total yards by a quarterback in a season. Brees’ total was 5,562 yards – a mark he set in 2011 – and Mahomes topped it in the second quarter of this game. Mahomes finished with 5,614 yards – it is worth noting that he played 17 games to the 16 that Drew had available – a number that might have finished lower than expected as his performance against the Raiders was one of control as opposed to forcing and pushing the ball down the field.
Whether Mahomes wins the MVP Award or not, and he should, these Chiefs will be a seriously tough out in the playoffs.
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