Mahomes Explains Chiefs’ Strategy on Critical Fourth-Quarter Pass

On the consecutive passes to Tyquan Thornton in the deep left corner:

“Yeah. I mean, I think we had the pass on the field, and with the review, I got to talk it over with the guys on the sideline, and we thought they might play a man coverage, and we had a good play that we got to. And it was just about buying time, you know, with that defensive line. And, so I wish I could have got it a little bit further and made it an easier catch, but a tremendous catch by him on that right there. And then securing and getting us to the 1 so we can score a touchdown.

On whether that was his first read on the play, whether he was always going to Thornton:

“Yeah, I mean, it's a kind of a dual read, where it's kind of a man-versus-zone-type read. And so having the man coverage, we had a play where you run toward the post and bring them back out, and he did a good job of winning.

“I was rolling the other way, so it was a little further throw, but just giving him a chance to make a play, and a guy making a play.”

On Kansas City’s defensive performance:

“Yeah. I mean, they've been playing great these last two weeks. They've played winning football. And for us, we had to clean stuff up and get better. But they're playing good; they're playing tight coverage. They're rushing, they're blitzing, they're doing all type of different stuff that you're supposed to do as a winning defense.

“And so, for us, if they can continue to do that, and we can clean stuff up, we’ll win a lot of football games.”

On the second quarter, and the play he made on Bobby Okereke after the backward pass:

“Yeah, I kept throwing the ball backwards. That's not good. So just letting the rush get to me a little bit, and then trying to just kind of throw it out, looking to see if the guy’s actually in the spot that we got to get to.

“And so obviously, did it once. I knew immediately it was backwards. You could tell I'm running to go recover the ball … And then secondly, did it again. It's like, I don't think I've done it maybe ever my career. So, to do it twice in kind of a short span like that, I will say it was a great tackle I made myself. That was a big-time tackle. So, I'm not gonna try to do that again. We throw the ball forward from now on.”