In the aftermath of the Kansas City Chiefs narrow 19-17 victory on Friday over the Las Vegas Raiders, nobody was happy after the win. Some players left the field without shaking hands, feeling lucky and unhappy about the win. However, the look on the face of Patrick Mahomes face said it all, and the coaching staff better pay attention.
Dad Body or not, Patrick Mahomes can’t keep absorbing the hits game in and out. The Las Vegas Raiders punished him on a per-snap basis. The offensive line, especially both tackles, were woeful. I hate to be harsh, but Jawaan Taylor is among the highest-paid right tackles in the NFL, and he can’t line up correctly in pass coverage for nearly two seasons.
Wanya Morris has been playing hurt, and the move to put Joe Thuney at left tackle should have occurred at halftime, not in the fourth quarter! Still, Mahomes was harassed, sacked, hit, and playing one-on-eleven football with all the missed blocks.
If the Chiefs aren’t careful, Mahomes might follow Andrew Luck’s example and say, “The heck with my career, I’ve had enough.”
Andrew Luck was Patrick Mahomes until he retired at the age of 29. He was brilliant, winning games on his talent alone and doing the impossible by throwing the football in tight spaces with the game on the line. The Colts were the benefactors, with fans in the stands, money rolling into the franchise, Luck on the field winning franchise-lifting wins, and an inexpensive team around him.
Suddenly, his body began to wear out, and he finally realized: Enough of the beatings. It’s simply not worth the risk to life after football. Like Mahomes, Luck is a family man, and the pain of playing the sport he loved had taken its final toll.
Mahomes is entering the same territory as Luck. The only difference is that as the Chiefs quarterback, he’s won three of the last six Super Bowls and is a candidate for the first Three-Peat in NFL history.
But at what price?
Head Coach Andy Reid and General Manager Brett Veach have loaded the Chiefs with talent, but they’ve never given their unicorn Quarterback five solid offensive linemen. On Friday, that was in full display.
Yesterday, the game reminded me of the beating Mahomes took in Super Bowl LV against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Though Mahomes rarely left the pocket Friday, he stood tall despite the overwhelming odds that he would be crushed while throwing the ball.
Adding DJ Humphries into the starting lineup against the Los Angeles Chargers should help, but Taylor is still the weak link. Sadly, the Chiefs are stuck with Taylor for this year and next before they can jettison this failed experiment.
Yes, that’s harsh, but what’s more important to the franchise: a struggling, overpaid right tackle or your star quarterback?
To his credit, after the game, Mahomes said he believed in his offensive line and held the company line. Inside, that had to be torture to say. He’s not blind; he’s watching them in real-time with the game on the line.
At some point, you’d think pride would enter their mindset. Imagine if the interior of the offensive line was as bad as the tackles. The fact that we are complaining about an 11-1 team that clinched their 10th straight postseason appearance should be as alarming to the fans, the media, and the rest of the NFL public, who all feel the 2024 Chiefs are about to become the 2023 Philadelphia Eagles.
Head Coach Andy Reid gets paid a king’s ransom and never panics. However, he’s also slow to react to the obvious. This old offensive line coach can’t see what we see game in and out, and the fact that his quarterback is under siege is beyond my comprehension.
Forget the fact Morris is bad; the fact that Reid kept passing the ball and ignoring the run game for no reason other than to lessen the bruises on his quarterback is something a rookie coach does – not a three-time Super Bowl-winning coach. He has five regular season games to get his offensive line right.
I don’t think Mahomes will leave the game soon, but this man needs help. It’s so unfair to put so much of the burden on Mahomes that it’s become evident his joy of playing football is not on display.
I feel bad for Mahomes and hope he doesn’t wake up someday in the off-season, look at his three kids, and say, “You know what? I’ve had enough.” If Reid doesn’t start creating better protection schemes, the Chiefs will become the Eagles of a year ago.
Should that occur, the front office had better invest all its resources in the offensive line this off-season, including retaining Trey Smith, re-signing DJ Humphries, and sending Taylor to tackle school to master the art of lining up correctly.
