Inside Patrick Mahomes’ quest to elevate Chiefs’ new receiving corps

NATE TAYLOR • SEPT. 23, 2022

At some point, the days of Kansas City Chiefs training camp all start to feel the same. With this year being the team’s 10th consecutive camp at Missouri Western State in St. Joseph under coach Andy Reid, any change in routine is apparent to everyone.

When the person adding that own wrinkle is Patrick Mahomes, the franchise’s superstar quarterback, the moment can feel monumental.

During one special teams walkthrough this summer, while other veterans joked around or began cool-down stretches, Mahomes realized he couldn’t wait for the next part of his usual itinerary. With a remote control in his right hand, he gathered a few of his newest receivers — JuJu Smith-Schuster, Marquez ValdesScantling and Justin Watson — for an impromptu film session to dig into the details of plays the offense ran in practice.

“Don’t be surprised if that’s a back-shoulder (throw) for me,” Mahomes told his teammates on one play. Click.

“Don’t be surprised if I’m coming to (receiver No.) three and not (No.) two on this.” Click.

“In this window, you can throttle down. If you get open right here, you can give me your eyes and I can still throw you the ball.”

The more Mahomes spoke, the more players and coaches surrounded him. Offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy, quarterbacks coach Matt Nagy and receivers coach Joe Bleymaier nodded and smiled as they watched Mahomes in his newest role: a professor of Reid’s offense.

Similar to any subject in higher education, the Chiefs’ system of complex concepts — with principles from the West Coast, Air Raid and old-school option offenses — can be taught by different people in different manners. Entering his sixth season, the 27-year-old Mahomes understands his new receivers, most of whom came to Kansas City specifically to play with him, need to hear how he teaches the Chiefs’ offense. With every practice repetition and snap this season, he wants them to see the plays and postsnap adjustments unfold in the same way he does.

“You want them to accept the challenge, and be like, ‘All right, this is how the Chiefs do it; this is how we win games,’” Mahomes said. “I want to show them how to do it the right way. If they hear it from me, I feel like it means even more.”

Mahomes entered this season, one of the prime years of his career, with perhaps his greatest test.

In late March, the Chiefs traded Tyreek Hill, the league’s fastest player and the perfect deep-threat, game-changing receiver for Mahomes, to the Miami Dolphins in exchange for five draft picks. The transaction, executed by Reid and general manager Brett Veach, was done to help improve the Chiefs’ defense and better balance the team’s roster.

In camp, Mahomes was asked the same question over and over: How will the Chiefs offense look without Tyreek? But Mahomes didn’t just lose Hill. Kansas City didn’t retain veteran receivers Demarcus Robinson and Byron Pringle as well. That meant the quarterback would take on even more responsibility — a duty, Veach said, that energized Mahomes even before the blockbuster trade was announced.

“He’s not content,” Veach said. “He’s had a lot of success, but he also has a chip on his shoulder. He’s always the first one to do extra work. He realizes there’s no shortcut.”

Mahomes doesn’t believe he did enough last season — on the field or in the team’s facility — to lead the Chiefs to a third consecutive Super Bowl appearance, sometimes going through the usual routines without the intensity or focus necessary to ensure Kansas City’s offense maintained its usual excellence.

“When you’ve been a part of the same team over and over again,” he said, “you know what every guy is going to do.”

After suffering a torn plantar plate in his left foot (turf toe), Mahomes had, for the first time in his career, played himself into a slump with bad footwork, ill-advised passes that led to interceptions and an unwillingness to take shorter completions when opposing defenses used two deep safeties to thwart long passes to Hill.

The Chiefs adjusted midway through last season, and the league’s most talented quarterback returned to form. In playoff victories over the Steelers and the Bills, he generated 782 passing yards and eight touchdowns and committed only one turnover. He was almost flawless in the first half of the AFC Championship Game against the Bengals: 18 completions on 21 attempts, 220 passing yards, three touchdowns and zero turnovers.

But his last pass before halftime, a completion to Hill for no gain short of the end zone as time expired, began the Chiefs’ downfall, an 18-point collapse that resulted in an overtime loss. The following two quarters plus overtime marked the worst single-game stretch of Mahomes’ career: eight completions on 18 attempts, 55 passing yards, four sacks, two turnovers and zero touchdowns.

His final pass, a deep attempt to Hill covered by two defenders, was an interception.

“You can’t relax. That was the biggest thing,” Mahomes said. “Every game I had played in the playoffs, for the most part, it was back and forth and we had to battle