Getty Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes sits with offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy in Week 3.
As Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes II put it in his postgame press conference after the game: “We have to be better, that’s all I can say, as an offense we have to be better.”
Most fans would probably agree after the Chiefs O scored 17 points against a winless Indianapolis Colts team that was missing their best defensive playmaker in linebacker Shaquille Leonard.
But what was the cause of this sudden lack of firepower from Kansas City? This is an offense that blew past the Arizona Cardinals and showed flashes against Los Angeles Chargers. It’s also a unit that’s led by one of the most talented quarterbacks in the league.
The Chiefs will study the film and look for answers this week but fans and the media will no doubt speculate on a public spat between Mahomes and offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy, as the teams headed to their locker rooms at halftime.
Patrick Mahomes Speaks on Argument With Eric Bieniemy
As you’d expect, KC media members did ask Mahomes about his heated discussion with Bieniemy after the game.
“Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day I wanted to go try and score — that’s just who I am,” the Chiefs QB answered. “We were in a tough situation, I believe it was like second or third and 20, something like that. Probably the smart decision was to just take [it to halftime]. We got the ball at the half so let’s just go to halftime, but I’m always going to be wanting to score.”
Then he elaborated more on the back-and-forth between him and his OC.
“I pretty much just said: ‘Let me have a chance at it,'” Mahomes relayed. “Then he was just like, ‘let’s get back in the locker room and we’ll get something going for the next half.’ I don’t know if that’s an altercation but that was the end of the conversation.”
Reporters pressed further on what play-call the gunslinger was unhappy about.
“It was the run,” Mahomes admitted with a smile, “because I tried to go deep the first two times… all I said was I’m not gonna turn it over. I’ll get it out, try and get it to the sideline and give us a chance to kick a field goal.”
From an outside perspective, it sounds like this argument had to do with a conservative moment from Bieniemy — taken as a perceived lack of trust or faith in the offense. It also had to do with the superstar’s competitive nature.
“It’s a tough situation,” Mahomes concluded, squashing the beef. “Me, I’m on the field, I’m playing. I want to always try and go score, that’s who I am. That’s their job to make sure they manage the game the right way. We had multiple chances to win after that, we just gotta be better in the second half.”
Patrick Mahomes Tips Hat to Defense, Offense Will ‘Figure It Out’
Mahomes had nothing but good things to say about the other side of the football. In fact, he called it his “positive” takeaway from the Week 3 defeat.
“The defense plays like they’re playing right now, I have full trust the offense is going to figure it out,” Mahomes told the media. “That’s the positive I see in this game — defense is playing really good football and the offense [has] to learn to get better as the season goes on so we can win a lot of football games.”
As always, Mahomes took full ownership of any issues, saying today’s struggles start with him.
The signal-caller threw a season-high 15 incompletions against the Colts, with 262 passing yards and a one-one ratio on touchdowns to interceptions. He was sacked once and the turnover came on the final offensive play of the game.
Similar to his first two outings, Mahomes spread the ball around well targeting eight different pass-catchers — connected with six of them. His favorite three receivers continue to be Travis Kelce, JuJu Smith-Schuster and Marquez Valdes-Scantling.