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Patrick Mahomes does some incredible things. The Kansas City Chiefs quarterback has a cannon for a right arm, can scramble out of trouble when he needs to, and is bringing a pretty awesome brand of backyard football to the NFL with his no-look passes and 40-yard bombs. Who has time for that whole three yards and a cloud of dust offense anyway?
The reigning league MVP has continued to dominate competition in his second season as the team’s starter, and is already the favorite to win the award after the first quarter of the new season. And, while it’s hard to find a flaw in Patrick Mahomes’ game, one of the most impressive traits he has is his field awareness and decision-making ability, playing at a speed that’s just a little bit slower than everyone else.
Mahomes showed those skills against the Detroit Lions, when, during a scrambling play, he actually turned his head back over his shoulder to glance at the referee, which had commentators shook, as it’s not something you really see. Here’s a look at the play.
Patrick Mahomes is the 🐐 for looking at the ref like that mid runpic.twitter.com/zWHSsIa23w
— BBQ Chiefs (@BBQChiefs) September 29, 2019
Sure, there wasn’t a defender within 25 yards of him — so it wasn’t like he was under a ton of duress — but that’s still pretty remarkable for Patrick Mahomes to do. And the reason he did so further proved his football IQ, because the gunslinger wanted to make sure that there wasn’t a flag before taking off, making sure he preserved his energy before scattering a bunch of yards for a play that was going to get called back.
Talking to the press the other day, here’s how Mahomes explained his decision to look back at the ref.
“I looked back to see if there was a penalty. I saw that I had the room to run it and that I could probably get the first down, but I didn’t want to run like 50 yards if I was going to be called back and have to run another play. So I kind of just looked back to see if there was a penalty, realized there wasn’t one, so I just kind of took off.”
There are some things that just can’t be taught, and Patrick Mahomes’ instincts are things that help separate him from other quarterbacks in the league. He sort of breaks the mold of things a guy should and shouldn’t do on a football field, and, somehow, it works for him. Seriously, what coaches are teaching no-look passes?
Considering Mahomes is like a video game character out there, it’s only fitting that he’s an absolute beast in Madden NFL 20, where he dominates as much in a digital reality as he does in real life.