There are innumerable reasons why Patrick Mahomes is unlikely to repeat as MVP for the second straight year, but he’ll overcome every one of them.
After the throws Patrick Mahomes made in his NFL debut against the Denver Broncos, it was clear the Chiefs had a special talent. Some may have even been optimistic that Mahomes might be able to continue doing what Alex Smith had been doing in the prolific 2017 version of the Chiefs. But none of us had any idea how good this guy is; we still don’t have a concept of how good he can become.
There are so many amazing things about what Mahomes did in 2018 as a first year starter:
Pretty much anything he had the opportunity to do, he did well. But more important than all the highlights, more crucial than everything on the list above, there were two traits Mahomes displayed which showed this is not just another “good young quarterback.” Having these two traits in such abundance, particularly when he has played less than 20 NFL games, shows that despite all the naysayers coming into 2019, who are saying that Mahomes will fall back to earth or even be a fantasy bust, he is still very likely to be the best player in the league again this year.
Those two traits? Keep reading.
Pinpoint Accuracy
Mike Leach famously said that players who aren’t accurate should not be recruited, because you simply can’t teach accuracy. Players either have it or they don’t. Mahomes has it, and he has it seemingly all the time, regardless of the platform he’s throwing from. Last season it was extremely rare for him to throw an uncatchable ball – there were not balls in the dirt, or throws out wide to the left or right.
Occasionally on a deep ball he overthrew it and the ball was uncatchable. But it was a rarity. To be able to throw the ball exactly where it needs to be thrown, even in tough situations, is what we saw again and again.
As Seth Keysor pointed out in a recent article on The Athletic, Mahomes threw some remarkably beautiful throws that were not caught and just went down in the books as incompletions. Mahomes has off-the-charts accuracy even under duress, which is one of the main markers of the all-time greats.