Can We Talk About This One Patrick Mahomes Throw?
No one else can do what Patrick Mahomes does
After all the talk about Super Bowl LV being a matchup of all-time great quarterbacks, Patrick Mahomes looked fairly pedestrian. Well, more accurately, his numbers were fairly pedestrian (26-of-49 passing for 270 yards and two interceptions). Considering how difficult the Buccaneers’ front seven made his life, it’s a minor miracle that he played even that well.
Mahomes was under pressure all night long. According to ESPN, he was pressured on 29 of his 56 dropbacks (51.7%), more than any other quarterback in Super Bowl history. (Brady, by comparison, was only pressured on four of 30 dropbacks.) As a result, Mahomes spent most of the night running all over the backfield, trying desperately to buy himself enough space to find a receiver. According to the NFL’s Next Gen Stats, he ran 497 yards on his dropbacks, more than any quarterback since the league started tracking these things in 2016. That’s more than a quarter-mile. (And he did it with a toe injury that will require offseason surgery.)
The Buccaneers pass rush forced Patrick Mahomes to bail out of the pocket and scramble all over the field.
— Next Gen Stats (@NextGenStats) February 8, 2021
Mahomes traveled 497 yards before throwing the ball or being sacked, the most scramble yards in a game by any QB in the NGS Era (since 2016).#SBLV | #ChiefsKingdom pic.twitter.com/pHhXrYxadX
But because he is Patrick Mahomes, his throws looked desperate but not hapless. On several occasions, he zig-zagged across the backfield and threw a pass that, for any other player, would have been a prayer. Out of Mahomes’s hand, though, these frantic passes actually had a chance. Here’s one where he’s in the clutches of a defender, being spun around, nearly 30 yards from the goal line and drops it within inches of his (double-covered!) receiver’s hands in the corner of the end zone.
ISSO SERIA SURREAL. #SuperBowl #NFLBrasil pic.twitter.com/nAEhyz7vHt
— NFL Brasil (@NFLBrasil) February 8, 2021
That’s ludicrous. There is no one else on Earth who could do that. And yet, Mahomes did something somehow even more impressive on the very next play. In a dud of a game that the Chiefs lost, this may somehow be the single play that people are talking about the most. And it was an incomplete pass on fourth down in a three-score game.
Once again, only four Tampa Bay pass-rushers managed to collapse the pocket instantaneously and force Mahomes to run for his life. He gets tripped up at the 29-yard line and, while his body is horizontal to the ground, throws a sidearm, perfect-spiral rocket that hits his receiver square in the facemask.
O QUE ACONTECEU AQUI. #RunItBack #NFLBrasil pic.twitter.com/XWVjFa6I7M
— NFL Brasil (@NFLBrasil) February 8, 2021
This is why, even though he’s only 25, people are talking about Mahomes’s potential to one day surpass Brady as the greatest quarterback in NFL history. There’s no one else who can do what he does. He makes circus throws on a regular basis, and can easily make the conventional throws a quarterback needs to make. He’s a freak. In the same way that no one can come close to matching Brady’s résumé, Mahomes’s sheer talent is unparalleled. It’s highly unlikely that he’ll end up playing 10 Super Bowls, or that he’ll win seven, but when Mahomes’s career is over, he’ll be remembered as the greatest magician in football.
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Here’s what went down between Mathieu and Brady
Brady tells Mathieu he's going at him all game. goes after him. then lets him know he went after him. pic.twitter.com/e5urtsD839
— Jomboy (@Jomboy_) February 8, 2021
Mahomes really got hung out to dry all game long
Here's one of the biggest plays of the game, 3rd & 6 late 2Q.
— Scott Kacsmar (@ScottKacsmar) February 8, 2021
Show me where Brady is stepping up in the pocket here when multiple guys come up the middle like this. https://t.co/qsJlxKl10K pic.twitter.com/9hmtaVn3sV
Kevin Harlan always rises to the occasion
Kevin Harlan's call of the idiot on the field (w/video from @rlacey23) : pic.twitter.com/iAI7WDi5xx
— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) February 8, 2021
So much enthusiasm here
Congratulations to the greatest of all time.
— New England Patriots (@Patriots) February 8, 2021
Honestly the best sports highlight of the day
MAMMA MIA TEODOSIC!!!!!!!pic.twitter.com/K9sTpiIYVl
— Emiliano Carchia (@Carchia) February 7, 2021
Not bad for an 18th-round pick
Former Montreal Expos draft pick wins #SuperBowl, named MVP https://t.co/HrKutQBMmq pic.twitter.com/sJ1inpHqVX
— Montreal Gazette (@mtlgazette) February 8, 2021
And yet Yao Ming makes them both look like children
aaron judge is one of the largest humans i’ve ever seen in person and shaq makes him look like a normie pic.twitter.com/CKW9OWe1uW
— Joon Lee (@joonlee) February 8, 2021
This would cause widespread civil unrest in Philly
Rumors all over tonight on #Eagles trade of QB Carson Wentz. Here’s what I’m told. Wentz and a draft pick to #Bears for number 1 draft pick, QB Nick Foles, and RB Tarik Cohen who is coming off ACL injury but should be ready in September. @SportsRadioWIP
— Howard Eskin (@howardeskin) February 7, 2021
Hey, can‘t hurt to ask
When trade talks began between the Rams and Lions, the first player Detroit requested in a trade for QB Matthew Stafford was DT Aaron Donald, per sources. Rams told Lions, that's not happening, before the two sides later figured out the eventual compensation package. https://t.co/blGUo3f47y
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) February 7, 2021
Not sports
An Indian comedian spent 35 days in jail for a joke he never actually made. ... A Navy veteran who lost his wallet while serving in Antarctica was reunited with it 53 years later. ... An aborted remaster of GoldenEye for the Xbox 360 was leaked online and is actually playable.
Phoebe Bridgers capped off her SNL performance by smashing her guitar
And people don’t want Puerto Rico to be a state?
Ay, Puerto Rico pic.twitter.com/65miEWlWqz
— Dánica Coto (@danicacoto) February 5, 2021
A supercut of trains plowing snow
A good song
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