Watch Out NFL, the Chiefs Can Throw Deep Again

The first week of full training camp is well underway for the 32 franchises of the NFL. During this time, the coaching staffs of the league will be running drills to get a first glance at how their roster could come together for the start of the 2025 season. Rookies will be tested, veterans will shake off rust, depth charts will be examined, and new play concepts will be prototyped. In essence, this time of year is all about what’s “new” in the NFL.

However, in Kansas City, the Chiefs are not just focused on testing new players and ideas. In reality, they’re also reexamining a concept that was once synonymous with the organization at the beginning of the Patrick Mahomes era: the deep ball. Mahomes, particularly during his first MVP year in 2018, was heralded as a “gunslinger,” a QB with a cannon for an arm that just couldn’t be satisfied with a dump off for a few yards if there was any possibility of launching a pass deep into the defensive backfield. That is not what we see with the Patrick Mahomes of the present.

There is one particular metric that tells the story of the ever-more conservative passing attack that the Mahomes Chiefs have fielded over the last several years. Since Mahomes became a starter in 2018, the fine folks at Pro Football Reference have kept track of the average intended air yards per pass attempt for every starting QB in the league. In a nutshell, this provides a number that shows how deep the average receiver is when Mahomes, or any other quarterback, throws them the ball, regardless of whether it is completed. In his aforementioned 2018 MVP campaign, Mahomes ranked sixth amongst starting QBs in this metric, with an average intended air yardage of 9.1. Compare that to now, where Mahomes has been third to last amongst starting QBs for two seasons in a row, with an average intended air yardage of 6.5 in 2023 and 6.2 in 2024. Mahomes has posted a new career low in this metric every single year, yet another of his uncanny 2024 season, showing that the deep ball is less and less utilized each passing season.

Why did this happen? The answer has two main factors. First off, it has been a measured priority for NFL defenses over the last several years to take away the deep ball from the offense. Leaguewide, the use of double high safety concepts, the kryptonite to the long bomb, has never been higher. By design, the defenses of the league are deadset at defending against deep passes, against Mahomes and every other QB in the NFL. Secondly, the Chiefs’ offense under Andy Reid has shifted away from heavily prioritizing going deep. Instead, the contemporary Chiefs’ passing game is based around the tried and true West Coast offense philosophy, focusing on shorter passes to march down the field, almost a run game by proxy that offers a sort of “death by a thousand cuts” to the defense. In the face of NFL defenses taking away the deep ball, Reid and the Chiefs just shrugged and decided to build around taking what the defense gives them.

This year, however, is different. The dynamic, deep throw offense that the Chiefs became famous for at the end of the 2010s isn’t just missed by football fans, but also by the Chiefs themselves. Indeed, the very first play of the very first practice of the year saw Mahomes launch a deep bomb to Xavier Worthy, who was touted as just the player who could help restore the deep ball to Mahomes with his blazing speed. This was not just a flash in the pan to start camp off hot, as he also completed a deep throw to Marquise Brown on the second day of camp. Mahomes even made a note of a newfound priority of going long to members of the press after the first day of camp.

There is obviously a lot of time and reps between now and the start of the regular season. The shorter passing attack worked wonders for the Chiefs and led them to three consecutive Super Bowl appearances. However, the gunslinger of old is still inside Patrick Mahomes, roaring to reemerge. If the first few days of training camp are any indication, 2025 could look a lot like 2018 for the folks in Kansas City.