Mahomes After Big Win Over 49ers: Chiefs Can Get Even Better

The Kansas City Chiefs have had some stellar offensive performances this season but considering their opponent, Sunday's win over the San Francisco 49ers may have been their best one yet.

Against the Niners' top-shelf defense, Kansas City's offense detonated. Andy Reid and Eric Bieniemy's unit totaled 529 net yards, averaged 9.1 yards per play, gained 5.3 yards per run, went 6-for-9 on third downs and scored a whopping six touchdowns en route to a 44-23 victory. That was with quarterback Patrick Mahomes having thrown a first-quarter interception and his team going down 10-0 early on. After the game, Mahomes said that he believes his team can continue to play even better moving forward despite just having one of the better outings of any team in 2022.

"Yeah, I mean, it's getting better and better," Mahomes said. "I think we can continue to get better. I think we're going to continue to get better and better as the season goes on. We'll learn from our mistakes and we'll go out there and improve and be even better when the season gets to the end of it. To go out against a defense like this and show that we can still be explosive and have those big plays, I think that will bode well for us as the season goes on because people don't know where it's going to come from."

Those explosive plays came in bunches for the Chiefs on Sunday, and their wide receiver room created several of them. Free agent acquisitions JuJu Smith-Schuster and Marquez Valdes-Scantling both went over the 100-yard mark as pass-catchers, with the former recording seven receptions for 124 yards and the latter hauling in three passes for 111 yards. Elsewhere, running back Jerick McKinnon and tight end Travis Kelce logged longest receptions of 34 and 27 yards, respectively.

It was a total team effort from Kansas City, something that Mahomes has been teasing dating back to early in the offseason. The post-Tyreek Hill era was always going to force Mahomes to hit various targets over the course of a game and on Sunday, he completed passes to eight different players while attempting to throw to 10 of them. After the big win, he reiterated that he's got plenty of quality options to choose from and everyone will get their time to shine.

"We have guys everywhere in this offense," Mahomes said. "The receivers obviously had a big day today, the tight ends have had big days, the running backs have had big days. That's just going to be who we are as an offense, it's going to be everybody. It all starts up front and if the offensive line plays like they did today, we'll have a good day on offense because we have a lot of playmakers on this team."

With Mahomes at quarterback, the Chiefs are now 13-9 when trailing in a game by double digits. Per Josh Dubow of the Associated Press, all other quarterbacks in the Super Bowl era have a .155 win percentage in those situations. In situations that are normally considered dire and extremely unlikely for other teams to dig themselves out of, Mahomes and Kansas City are a decent bet to find a way. There's no panic in this year's Chiefs team and if the offensive explosion after Mahomes's early interception showed one thing, it's that these comebacks are expected.

"It's having done it, and then there's so much time left in the game," Mahomes said. "I'm going to compete to the final whistle, until coach takes me off that football field. Whenever you get down in these games, all you can do is [think about] how can you affect and go out there and have a positive next play? And then you kind of continue to do that on the next play and the next play. And EB (Eric Bieniemy) preaches that — the most important play is the next play."

Read More: Four Takeaways From the Chiefs' 44-23 Win Over the 49ers