KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Chiefs offense put up 40 points on the Oakland Raiders Sunday and Patrick Mahomes threw for almost 300 yards, but it seemed like a hum-drum afternoon for the 23-year-old gunslinger.
“You come off a bye like that and sometimes you have that in the pass game,” head coach Andy Reid said. “Just timing is off a bit.”
Timing seemed a problem for the Chiefs on Sunday on both sides of the ball. While the defense eventually plowed its way to 40 points, the defense yielded 33 points to an Oakland squad averaging 18 points per game that topped 28 points just once before on the season.
“Sometimes that can be tough with timing, tackling, those kind of things you see with teams coming off the bye, whether it's timing on the offensive side or tackling on the defensive side,” Reid said. “It was good to get this game in and still come out on the positive end with those things being part of it.”
Dropped passes and missed throws cost the Chiefs on several occasions. Mahomes and Tyreek Hill connected just once on six targets, misfiring on four deep balls including a drop on a third-and-7 on the team's only three-and-out of the day.
Mahomes also nearly connected with Gehrig Dieter on deep ball that was just overthrown.
“He came so close in that to having a touchdown throw that it was crazy,” Reid said.
So what's the solution for poor timing in the passing game? Reid says there's a simple solution for Mahomes.
“In his case you keep firing though and that's what he did,” Reid said. “You've got to have a short memory on those things. If you get cautious, where you're second-guessing yourself, you're going to end up with the turnovers.”
Defensively the Chiefs suffered from similar timing problems. Raiders running back Jalen Richard rushed for 95 yards on just six carries thanks to some poor tackling. But the defense forced three turnovers that helped avert total disaster.
The end result, a 40-33 ball game that Reid doesn't feel should ever have been in doubt.
“Listen, if we tackle better on that side and if we hit some of those shots on the offensive side, it's not quite as close a game I don't think as it turned out,” Reid said.
