Patrick Mahomes used to be known for his risky throws, but in recent years he has been shying away from taking risks. Now he wants to return to his former ways—can that work?

Patrick Mahomes is considered one of the best quarterbacks of our time. In the past three seasons, he has led the Kansas City Chiefs to the Super Bowl every time – winning the final twice. Overall, the 30-year-old can look back on three Super Bowl victories.
Nevertheless, Mahomes’ game had changed in the recent past. Simply put, Mahomes had almost completely stopped testing the defense in the downfield with deep throws.

NFL: Kansas City Chiefs with offensive problems

He himself felt that he was playing the safe pass too often. Yet it was the spectacular plays that once made Mahomes a superstar.

At training camp, Mahomes promised his teammates that he would improve. “I told the guys to hold me accountable. I wanted to hold myself accountable by giving the guys a chance to make big plays,” the quarterback revealed last Wednesday. In fact, he has put his plan into action. Mahomes is not only making more risky plays – he has also re-emerged as one of the most aggressive quarterbacks in the NFL when it comes to throwing the ball deep.

To put that in numbers, in the 2024 season, he threw only 50 passes for more than 20 yards. That put Mahomes in 29th place in the NFL. He did this practically only when he felt confident he could make the pass. As a result, 42 passes were completed – 27th place in the NFL.

Patrick Mahomes plays the risky ball more often

Mahomes is taking more risks this season, throwing 15 passes for more than 20 yards in the first three games. This is the fourth-highest total in the league. Although he only completed nine of those passes to his teammates, that’s still good enough for eleventh place in the NFL. Another interesting aspect is air yards per attempt. In football, this is a metric that measures how many yards the football travels on average in the air (i.e., “traveling through the air”) per pass attempt.

When Mahomes played his first season as a starting quarterback in 2018, this figure averaged 9.1 yards. Since then, the average has fallen year after year, reaching a personal low of 6.1 yards last season. In the current season, however, Mahomes is at 8.6 yards – the second-highest figure of his career.

The only problem is that this hasn’t made the offense any better so far. Only one of the first three games of the season has been won. On average, they have achieved 207.7 passing yards per game. This puts the Chiefs in 15th place in the NFL. Last season, they were slightly better with an average of 222.4 yards (14th place).

Mahomes remains confident, however: “I’m just excited to see where this offense goes. I know it hasn’t been the perfect product we’ve put out there so far, but there have been a lot of good things too.”

Tyquan Thornton is the receiver for high balls

In particular, Mahomes has begun to develop chemistry with speedy receiver Tyquan Thornton, who has been the most frequent target on the team’s deep throws.

A good example was a risky play in Sunday’s 22-9 win over the New York Giants, when Thornton made a jump ball catch for 33 yards on a third-and-10 pass.

Tyquan Thornton reels it in!

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“I think when guys like Tyquan come down with the catch, it gives me confidence so I can throw the ball deep and let them try to make plays. We’re going to keep getting better.”

The Chiefs will have to prove that this coming Sunday in their game against the Baltimore Ravens, who also have a record of one win and two losses.