FLOWERY BRANCH, Ga. — Atlanta Falcons defensive players talk about Patrick Mahomes like he’s an actor, and the NFL’s leading man is coming to Mercedes-Benz Stadium Sunday night.
“When the play breaks down and you’ve covered everything and done everything right, there’s a second part of the play. There’s a second act,” Falcons linebacker Kaden Elliss said. “When you’re able to not only cover the initial play that the great Andy Reid designed, it falls apart, you’ve got Patrick Mahomes becoming Him.”
By “him” we mean the dominant figure in his environment, and few professional athletes have been more dominant in their environment than Mahomes.
In six seasons as Kansas City’s starting quarterback, he has never finished a season less than the AFC Championship Game. His three Super Bowl titles are the third-most starting quarterbacks in NFL history, and everyone ahead of him on this list has played at least twice as many seasons as him. Only Tom Brady and Joe Montana have more playoff wins than Mahomes’ 15, and he is 29 years old. Since entering the league in 2017, no quarterback has won more games (91) or with a higher winning percentage (78.4 percent). The seven other quarterbacks drafted in 2017 have won a combined 76 games.
Those numbers are endless, and they’re the reason Atlanta finds itself on the prime-time stage for the second week in a row as the Falcons prepare to host the Chiefs at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Sunday Night Football.
With all due respect to Kirk Cousins, Bijan Robinson and the Falcons in their new guise: The stage belongs to Mahomes.
“That’s his improvisation, man,” Falcons safety Richie Grant said. “He can improvise every single play and turn something that you think isn’t a win into a touchdown.”
Mahomes is so good that he even surpasses the oldest NFL cliche – that every week must be treated exactly the same, no matter who the opponent is. Atlanta outside linebacker Matthew Judon faced Mahomes six times as a member of the New England Patriots. “Mahomes Week is different,” he said.
“There are special players in this league,” Judon said. “When you have a guy like Patrick Mahomes on the roster, you look at a little more footage. You pay closer attention to the details because he’s a three-time champion and there’s something in the details that can win the game. It’s going to be something in the details. It’s probably going to come down to a few plays.”
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The Chiefs (2-0) come to Atlanta as 3.5-point favorites after winning eight games in a row since last postseason.
“As a competitor, you always want to compete against one of the best competitors,” Grant said. “I would question you if you didn’t have that attitude.”
“It definitely fuels the ambition,” Elliss said. “In this league, if you take someone who is sloppy, you get punished for it, but when you go up against a team of this quality, it fuels the ambition a little more. I’m excited.”
Falcons coach Raheem Morris compares Mahomes not to an actor, but to an alien.
“He’s an alien,” Morris said. “He’s smart. He’s one of a kind. He can move. He can buy time. He can play within the system. He knows what you’re doing on defense. He’s grown so big that he sees everything. He’s seen every trick, every play, every scale, whatever you want to call it. He’s been able to really go out there and play his best at pretty much everything, and he’s just one of the best.”
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Atlanta’s offensive coordinator Zac Robinson, an analyst for Pro Football Focus in 2017, compiled a list of quarterbacks eligible for the draft. He said Mahomes possessed all of those qualities even then.
“Obviously the ability that he has with his arm to really make any throw at any time was special, and then you just saw the instincts and the vision and you immediately said, ‘There’s really no way this isn’t going to work,’ as long as he’s dedicated to the game and loves it,” Robinson said. “Obviously he’s proven he’s a football junkie.”
Sunday night will be the second time the Falcons have faced Mahomes. The first was in December 2020, when Morris was Atlanta’s interim coach following the firing of Dan Quinn. The Chiefs won 17-14, but the Falcons gave Mahomes so many problems (55 percent completion rate, 79.5 passer rating) that other NFL teams briefly hoped they had provided a blueprint to slow him down.
Since then, he has participated in three Super Bowls.
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Morris got another chance against Mahomes in 2022 as the Rams’ defensive coordinator. Again, Mahomes didn’t play particularly well (85.4 passer rating). Again, Mahomes won (26-10). In two matchups against Morris’ defenses, Mahomes’ passer rating and efficiency, measured in EPA per attempt, were lower than his career averages (82.4 passer rating versus 103.3 and 0.04 EPA per attempt versus 0.26), according to TruMedia.
These numbers don’t change how Morris talks about Mahomes.
“He’s definitely a problem no matter what you do,” the coach said, “and he’s one of the best we’ve seen in any generation.”
Falcons safety Justin Simmons, who spent the first eight years of his career in Denver, also had some success against Mahomes. He intercepted the quarterback’s pass five times. No other player managed that more than twice. Like Morris, Simmons is smart enough not to brag about it.
“It’s not the first three seconds of the game, it’s the next four or five seconds that really count,” Simmons said. “You can’t get frustrated when they make a big play. It’s a next play mentality. They shoot a lot and you have a lot of chances to play the ball. We have to be able to make plays. It’s fun to play that cat-and-mouse game. This is going to be a big game for us.”
(Photo: David Eulitt / Getty Images)
