It’s time for Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes to take over the team’s offense. He started during the weeks preceding the launch of the offseason program by gathering teammates for informal workouts.
“There are great high schools around and I talked to some of the coaches and they let us use their fields so we got to go out there and I would have at least four to five guys a day,” Mahomes told reporters on Monday, the first day of the team’s formal strength and conditioning program. “It was everybody that was in town at the time they would come out there. The good thing with my teammates and the guys that we have in this locker room is they want to work and they want to get better so it was easy to get those guys out there.”
Mahomes spent most of his rookie season learning the offense. That knowledge came in handy on those high-school fields.
“I tried to simulate it as if there was a defense out there,” Mahomes said. “I would give the routes and then I would give them based off of certain coverage because we run them differently compared to in the game when you have to adjust on the fly. I would say ‘single safety middle zone’ or ‘cover two’ and try to let the receivers run the routes how they would run it versus that so we can build timing and things like that. . . . It helped out a ton from last year learning all those things and then having veteran guys like Chris Conley and [Travis] Kelce and all of those guys that can help explain the routes even better to me. Then it helps me get a better understanding of what they’re thinking.”
So why spend extra time doing these things?
“All of these guys in the locker room want to get better,” Mahomes said. “We’re trying to make each other better every single day. When you have guys like ours you can say things and they listen to you and give feedback and that’s how you get better as a team.”
As some Chiefs fans worry about whether things will be better with the inexperienced Mahomes taking over for the veteran who was traded to Washington, Mahomes’ commitment should reassure them that he’s not going to simply wing it, like others with a strong arm and decent mobility may be inclined to try to do.