Throughout the offseason, Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes has talked about a need to complete more deep passes to open up the club’s offense.
In Kansas City’s first practice this week, Mahomes was able to connect on one such pass with Xavier Worthy, constituting a decent start to that endeavor.
After the session, Mahomes told reporters that’s what the offense has to do.
“We got to keep doing it, though, and we got great corners, so that’s going to be a lot of challenges for us,” Mahomes said in his press conference. “But even on some of those that we throw incomplete, that we’re throwing down the field, we can talk through those routes and talk through that stuff. And so that’s the mindset is getting back to throwing the ball down the field, and if we can do that, it’ll open up the rest of the offense.”
Mahomes went back to that same point when asked how he can get better from 2024.
“I think for me I have to be better at throwing the ball down the field,” Mahomes said. “I mean obviously, we weren’t good enough there. We’ve had success in prior years, but these last few years we haven’t done that. In order for our offense to be great, you have to be able to complete those passes. It opens up everything else.
“So, if teams are going to challenge us at the line of scrimmage, if teams are going to challenge us to throw the ball deep, we have to show that we can do that. If we can do that — first it starts with me and giving guys [chances]. And if we can do that, I think it is really going to open up the offense and make us a better team in general.”
Mahomes averaged just 6.8 yards per attempt — the lowest mark of his career. As Mahomes referenced, in 2022 the club was hitting more downfield passes, as he finished that year at 8.1 yards per attempt en route to winning his second MVP award. But that dropped to 7.0 yards per attempt in 2023.
