The best thing for the Kansas City Chiefs about quarterback Patrick Mahomes winning NFL MVP and offensive player of the year on Saturday night in Atlanta is the fact he did it in his first year as a starter and second in the league.
Perhaps the best is yet to come for Mahomes, who won’t turn 24 until September. His coach, Andy Reid, said he thinks so.
“It was a great learning experience,” Reid said shortly after the Chiefs’ season ended with a 37-31 overtime loss to the New England Patriots in the AFC Championship Game. “I mentioned that during the season. I thought every game was a learning experience for him, something where he could get something out of the game and get better as a player. He’s still got room to grow. He knows that. He’ll work hard this offseason to do that.
“What a great start he had, a nice foundation that he built. He got to see the magnitude of a game like (the AFC Championship), how it’s a little bit faster than the game before, and that’s the way it continues up through the Super Bowl.”
None of this is to suggest Mahomes will ever have another statistical season on par with the one he recently completed. Mahomes threw 50 touchdown passes, only the third player in NFL history to hit that mark. He threw for more than 5,000 yards, making him the seventh player to accomplish that. Only one other player, Peyton Manning, has gone for 50 touchdowns and 5,000-plus yards in the same season.
But who’s to say he won’t? The Chiefs, in Tyreek Hill, Sammy Watkins and Travis Kelce, have surrounded Mahomes with talented receivers. In Reid designing and calling the plays, they have the system in place to maximize Mahomes’ talents.
In the regular season, Mahomes had two games with six touchdown passes and five more with four. He had 10 games with at least 300 yards.
It’s easy to see many more of those kinds of games from Mahomes in 2019 and beyond, making more 50 touchdown, 5,000 yard season and more offensive player of the year awards possible.