Chiefs' Patrick Mahomes downplays 'disagreement' with OC Eric Bieniemy

Chiefs head coach Andy Reid later explained that Mahomes' competitive nature makes him want "to rip your heart out on every play." As Charean Williams noted for Pro Football Talk, Mahomes also played down the Bieniemy incident during his weekly appearance on 610 Sports Radio out of Kansas City. 

"Yeah, I think after seeing the video, I see why people thought it’s a bigger deal than it actually was," Mahomes remarked. "Obviously, as an offensive player, and someone that wants to score every single time you're on the field, I wanted to take another chance and try to get it down the field and get out of bounds or something like that and try to give us a chance to either throw a Hail Mary or kick a field goal. But they had kind of made the decision — not just Coach Bieniemy; I think it was Coach Reid and the whole offensive staff — that we were in a good spot. 

"We had the lead (14-10), and we could just kind of get to the half and kind of refocus and had the ball coming out of the half, and we didn’t want to make a big mistake there at the half. That’s their jobs. I’ve got to be better knowing when that is the right decision, but at the same time, I always want to score. I think that’s kind of who I am." 

Mahomes insisted he and Bieniemy moved on from any supposed controversy inside the locker room before the game's second half and that fans and media members made the incident "more of a big deal" than it was between the two. 

"That’s what makes our culture so great is that all the people on this staff — the players, the coaches, and the locker room together, we all want to win," Mahomes added during his comments. "We want to go out there and compete and win and that competitive nature is what drives us to be great. Sometimes there is a little disagreement here or there, but we know that we’re trying to do whatever we can to win at the end of the day. I think if that’s not the case, it becomes something different. But that is the case, and we’ve been together for a long time and have won a lot of football games together." 

The 2-1 Chiefs may be staring at a different unique situation ahead of this coming Sunday's game against the 2-1 Tampa Bay Buccaneers, as that matchup may have to be relocated from Florida to a neutral site in the Midwest such as Minneapolis due to the threat of Hurricane Ian. The NFL is monitoring the storm's path but hasn't yet made a final decision about the location of that contest.