Patrick Mahomes: I didn’t play very good football, defense stepped up

[Pat Patriot]

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The Chiefs are 4-0 for the fourth straight season and the last three of those seasons have come with Patrick Mahomes running the offense.

Mahomes has put up some eye-popping numbers in those games, but that was not the case on Monday night against the Patriots. New England’s defense held the Chiefs without a touchdown in the first half, but the Kansas City defense forced a Brian Hoyer fumble to set up their first trip to the end zone and then Tyrann Mathieu returned a fourth quarter interception for a touchdown that put them up 26-10.

That would be the final score and Mahomes would finish the day 19-of-29 for 236 yards. He avoided an interception thanks to a questionable officiating decision and said after the game that the performance wasn’t up to his standards while noting the effort that the defense made to get them a victory anyway.

“I didn’t play very good football,” Mahomes said, via Nate Taylor of TheAthletic.com. “Our defense stepped up, made a lot of big-time plays. Whenever you’re trying to go throughout a season and win as many football games as possible to set you up for the playoffs, you’re going to have to win games like this.”

Other teams are likely to look at what the Patriots did and try to take some of it for their own attempts to slow down the Chiefs. The Chiefs will have to adjust to that and the combination of Mahomes and their own defense will make it easier to do that while remaining confident about what the future will bring.