Arrowheadlines: Patrick Mahomes is to blame for the death of the deep ball

The next season, Mahomes noticed defenses were starting to play him differently. If he was going to beat them, it wasn’t going to be with go-balls to Tyreek Hill. 

“We faced so many deep coverages where teams were taking away all our deep throws,” Mahomes said of the 2021 season during a Super Bowl LV media session. “I had to learn when to just take what’s underneath. 

That’s something where I’ve kind of grown and matured. We’ll call deep plays still all the time, but if defenses are going to play that deep, even though I want to in my heart of hearts to throw it downfield and make those big plays, I’ll take the underneath stuff and find ways to move the ball down the field that way.” 

The evolution of Mahomes’ aerial attack mirrors a league-wide trend that last season saw the fewest number of deep balls attempted — defined as traveling at least 15 air yards — since 2006. niques. As Pederson noted, if anyone is aware of how Taylor plays it’s the Jags since Taylor spent his first four seasons with the club and started every game for them last year. 

“I’m sure [the officials have] been notified after that first game on Thursday night,” Pederson said in his Wednesday press conference. “Again, a good player, we know who he is and he did the same thing here. He has great anticipation with the snap count. “I’m optimistic our crowd will be loud and if they use a silent count, he does a great job of getting off the ball there as well. 

If they call it, they don’t call it. It’s only so much you can say.” Travis Kelce’s absence affected him more than expected against the Lions, but if it weren’t for repeat drops from Kadarius Toney and Skyy Moore, he’d likely be 1-0. The magician still does more with less than just about anyone in the game.