For the third straight year, I’m considering the 10 biggest questions I have about the Kansas City Chiefs in 2025.
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If you’ve been following this series, we’re in familiar territory: the Chiefs need more explosive plays.
At left tackle, Josh Simmons could give quarterback Patrick Mahomes more time in the pocket to launch the ball downfield. Having wide receiver Rashee Rice back could help generate more explosive plays from the quick throws on which he thrives. Rice’s presence should also allow fellow wideout Xavier Worthy to specialize in downfield routes more often.
In short: we’ve already covered a lot of things that can help Kansas City become more explosive this season.
But we haven’t yet addressed the elephant in the room: Mahomes himself.
I don’t write about Mahomes very often, because there aren’t usually a lot of new things to say about him. He’s the greatest quarterback I’ve ever seen. He plays at an incredible level every week. He’s one of the smartest quarterbacks I’ve ever witnessed. He’s tremendous both in and out of the pocket.
It comes down to this: I like to cover the other areas of the team — because I know Mahomes is going to be great.
But Mahomes does contribute to some of the problems the Chiefs have had with explosive plays.
That’s because ever since the team traded Tyreek Hill to the Miami Dolphins, Mahomes’ biggest weakness has been a lack of downfield accuracy. Without Hill, Kansas City’s vertical passing game has become significantly worse.
Why has this been the case? It’s complicated.
First, the play of the offensive tackles over the last few seasons has hurt Mahomes’ ability to launch passes downfield. When he took over the offense in 2018, Eric Fisher and Mitchell Schwartz were protecting him on the outside. He could take long dropbacks, drift and create a big launching platform.
But since their departure, the pocket has been condensed. Mahomes can no longer drop 10-11 yards back. Instead, he’s limited to seven or eight yards. While the Chiefs do have a fantastic interior offensive line, it’s still a congested space from which it is difficult to throw deep passes. It can also affect a quarterback’s footwork — and thus, the throwing platform from which they pass.
Second, the Chiefs have lacked wide receivers who can win downfield. While Kansas City has never built its wide receiver group to succeed with contested catches, this skill has been sorely lacking during the past three seasons — and right now, none of the team’s wideouts are good at catching in traffic. There’s not much margin for error if a quarterback can’t trust his receivers to make a play.
That’s exactly what made Hill so special. While he stood only 5 feet 10, he was very strong, could jump 40 inches into the air and was very good at tracking the ball. The Chiefs don’t have anyone who can even come close to replicating that.
Finally… in the last two seasons, Kansas City didn’t have a burner. Drafting Worthy was a step in the right direction. But before that, the team’s main deep threat was Justin Watson. He was fine for what he was. But if a player like him is your main downfield threat, there’s a problem.
Still, it’s necessary to place some of the blame on Mahomes — particularly last season, when the tape reveals that Worthy showed an ability to get downfield. His speed played a big role in that — but even as a rookie, he was a pretty good route runner who could set up moves and angles to get himself downfield. So he was open pretty regularly. It’s just that Mahomes was often missing him.
So can it get better this year? There’s reason to believe it will. A second season with Worthy will clean up some of the timing and accuracy issues. There’s also plenty of room for Rice to run downfield routes; I would love to see the Chiefs let him run more Go routes to see what he can do. And the offensive tackle play will be better — on at least one side, anyway.
But it will also be up to Mahomes to improve his deep accuracy — and I have no reason to believe he can’t do it. He might have the best arm in NFL history; he’s shown he can make any throw. And throughout his career, when he’s been challenged to improve, he’s been able to do it. His pocket presence is better. His football IQ has improved. In the present circumstances, I think he can really master deep passing. He just needs to do it.
And here’s the good news: if Mahomes can improve enough to be an average deep passer, that’s going to make Kansas City’s offense a whole lot better. Connecting on even a few more downfield passes would drastically improve the team’s offensive efficiency. Yes… over the season, we might be talking about only five or six more completions. But if those passes all go for touchdowns, now we’re talking about something significant.
There’s a lot of untapped potential with the deep passing in the offense — and if Mahomes can master that in 2025, the Chiefs’ offense might become the best in the league.
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