At the same time as the 49ers are beginning to consider how they will be able to stop the Chiefs, they will have to deal with the quarterback who broke their hearts in Miami four years ago. During the final three drives of Super Bowl LIV, Mahomes went practically perfect, even though he was not perfect for the first four quarters of the game against the 49ers.

It was a game that had been dominated by the San Francisco defense, but the Chiefs scored 21 unanswered points, and the game turned out to be the ultimate example of a lesson that far too many teams have unhappily needed to learn: Never count off Mahomes.

It was on that particular day that he had the most significant effect by delivering two long passes to Tyreek Hill and Sammy Watkins, which resulted in scores for both of them. Since both of those wideouts have been gone for a considerable amount of time, the offense that the Chiefs utilized in the early stages of the Mahomes era has been compelled to transform into something different.

Mahomes’ passes traveled an average of 8.8 yards in the air during his MVP season in 2018, which was the sixth-highest rate for any quarterback. Mahomes took home the award for Most Valuable Player. Every season that has passed has resulted in a decrease in that number.

This is because there have been personnel changes, as well as the complete and utter terror that defenses have of allowing him to beat them deep. The average distance that his passes traveled in the air in 2023 was 6.2 yards, which was the smallest figure for any full-season starter this year. This season, he has only completed 17 passes deep, which is a decrease from the league-high 37 deep completions he had in 2018.

Mahomes was Steph Curry in his early career; now, he is the quarterback that the 49ers will have to cope with. As the 49ers begin to think about how they will stop the Chiefs, they will have to fight against the quarterback who shattered their hearts in Miami four years ago.

During the final three drives of Super Bowl LIV, Mahomes went practically perfect, even though he was not perfect for the first four quarters of the game against the 49ers. It was a game that had been dominated by the San Francisco defense, but the Chiefs scored 21 unanswered points, and the game turned out to be the ultimate example of a lesson that far too many teams have unhappily needed to learn: Never count off Mahomes.

It was on that particular day that he had the most significant effect by delivering two long passes to Tyreek Hill and Sammy Watkins, which resulted in scores for both of them. Since both of those wideouts have been gone for a considerable amount of time, the offense that the Chiefs utilized in the early stages of the Mahomes era has been compelled to transform into something different.

Mahomes’ passes traveled an average of 8.8 yards in the air during his MVP season in 2018, which was the sixth-highest rate for any quarterback. Mahomes took home the award for Most Valuable Player. Every season that has passed has resulted in a decrease in that number. This is because there have been personnel changes, as well as the complete and utter terror that defenses have of allowing him to beat them deep. The average distance that his passes traveled in the air in 2023 was 6.2 yards, which was the smallest figure for any full-season starter this year.

This season, he has only completed 17 passes deep, which is a decrease from the league-high 37 deep completions he had in 2018. From the beginning of his career, Mahomes was known as Steph Curry; now, he is known as Nikola Jokic.

As is the case with the great ones, Mahomes has developed. He has turned into a ruthlessly efficient individual who is capable of reading defenses and swiftly seizing what they are going to offer. During this season, Dak Prescott was the only quarterback who had a better percentage of his passes that were on target than he did.

It is surprising that Mahomes is able to pick through coverages and find open receivers without forcing passes, despite the fact that he was let down by a bunch of wide receivers that produced the worst collective drop rate in a single season over the past decade.

That Mahomes has been able to thrive without the big plays is one of the rare qualities about him that doesn’t get much conversation. There is another way that Mahomes has been able to thrive. Once upon a time, it was one of the most significant factors that led to the Chiefs’ victory over the Eagles in the Super Bowl.

While it is true that he has possessed this ability throughout his whole career, it is his expertise in this particular area that has been a significant factor in the Chiefs’ ability to get to the championship game in each of the last two seasons.

One of Mahomes’ hidden superpowers is his ability to evade sacks. It is impossible to overstate Mahomes’ ability to evade takedowns, prevent negative plays, and keep the offense on schedule when under pressure. His only rival is Josh Allen, a fellow escape artist who plays for the Buffalo Bills.

However, as he has matured, he has mastered the ability to deliver all of the rewards that come with prolonging plays while avoiding all of the negatives that associated with doing so. His approach attracts sacks.

The pure sack rate that Mahomes has is impressive, but it is not outstanding. During the previous two years, he placed third in sack rate behind both Brady and Allen (3.8%). In the previous season, he ranked third behind both Brady and Jared Goff (3.6%), and in 2023, he ranked second behind Allen (4%).

If you have watched either Brady or Goff, you are aware of how fundamentally different their playing styles are or were in comparison to those of the other two. Despite the pressure, they can get the ball out. The quarterbacks Allen and Mahomes are completely different from one another.

To have a better understanding of how Mahomes eliminates pass rushes, let’s divide the time that he has with the ball following the snap. Any time a passer tosses the ball within 2.5 seconds after the snap is the traditional number that we utilize for rapid game.

Even though it is nearly impossible to sack a quarterback in such a short amount of time, Mahomes manages to eliminate pressures in that area. According to recent stats, his 5% pressure rate on throws within 2.5 seconds during the regular season of 2023 was the best number for qualifying starts in the league. Allen was the only other player who finished ahead of 10%. More than three times greater than Mahomes’, the average score is close to sixteen percent.

Throws that are considered to be “in-rhythm” are defined as those that are thrown between 2.5 and 4 seconds after receiving the snap. Once again, Mahomes makes an outstanding contribution. In 2023, he was under to pressure at the third-lowest rate in the league; nonetheless, he was sacked on only 1.7% of his dropbacks at this range, which was the best mark in football.

It is around one-third of the average for the league, which is 4.9%. Even while his offensive line gets some of the credit, he is only being sacked 5.1% of the time when he is under pressure in circumstances like this. With a rate that is less than half of the average for the league, this is the highest ranking in the league.

In order to make plays, Mahomes will most likely continue to keep the ball in his possession, particularly while he is under pressure. Because of this practice, there are a lot of benefits that come with it, but sacks are also one of the drawbacks. (By avoiding these certain situations, Brady and Goff were able to keep their sack rates at a low level.)

When Mahomes held the ball for more over four seconds, he was under to pressure more than 71% of the time; nonetheless, he was only sacked on 16.5% of the plays that he performed during those times. Among the players who had a better sack rate in those circumstances, Allen was the only one who was one percentage point ahead of the competition. The rate is 31.2%, which is the league average.

The vast majority of these pressures are occurring before four seconds, and they are compelling Mahomes to make an effort to flee. On the other hand, if a defense does not provide pressure within four seconds, then they are not bringing out the opponent. More than twenty-four percent of the time, quarterbacks who are under pressure after the four-second mark are sacked.

Even Allen has not been able to avoid ending up in this position. (He is with a 22%.) Thirty-one times during the course of this season, Mahomes underwent pressure after four seconds. The dismissal of him occurred once. This constitutes a clip of 3.3%.

Saving the yardage losses that come with sacks is a significant factor in preventing the Chiefs from getting stranded in third-and-long situations. This is true even if the plays in question result in throws that are out of bounds and left-handed attempts that are unsuccessful. Only Allen has created more anticipated points added (EPA) per play on those extended plays over the course of the past three seasons. Allen is the only player to have accomplished this feat.

Because of these additional seconds, a Kansas City squad that does not have a lot of outstanding talent at receiver is able to go into scramble drills. In these drills, Mahomes is able to go into playground mode and throw open a pass-catcher. For defenders, these plays add an additional layer of stress since they cause them to lose their organization and force them to focus on opposing receivers in a manner that is essentially equivalent to man coverage.

The additional time results in an increased number of opportunities for penalties:

The Kansas City Chiefs have been the recipients of 36 defensive holding calls over the course of the past three seasons, which is ten more than any other club. In the event that you believe that this is the result of a biased referee, you should take into consideration the fact that throughout that span of time, they have only recorded thirteen pass interference penalties on opposition defenders, which is the second-fewest of any team.

In addition to that, Mahomes is an outstanding scrambler. Although he does not possess the same level of physical prowess as Allen or the same level of speed as Justin Fields or Lamar Jackson, his list of game-breaking scrambles is rapidly becoming legendary.

In the 2019 AFC Championship Game, the Titans scored a touchdown from 27 yards out at the conclusion of the first half to grab the lead. Two weeks later, the 49ers scored a touchdown because of a scramble on third-and-11. Both of these plays were successful.

A Mahomes scramble on third-and-4 in the 2022 AFC championship game resulted in a first down and an unnecessary roughness penalty, which set up the winning field goal against the Bengals. In Super Bowl LVII, a scramble that covered 26 yards put the Chiefs in position to make the game-winning field goal against the Eagles.

Only in the month of January, Mahomes was able to convert a fourth-and-five against the Dolphins by scrambling for 28 yards and then setting up a touchdown against the Bills by performing a 24-yard pass. In October, he was involved in a third-and-13 scramble for a first down that was called back for a holding penalty. This occurred on the last drive of a close victory over the Jets. He quickly replied by converting the subsequent third-and-23 by scrambling for 25 yards while the ball was in his possession.

When it comes to knowing when to scramble, Mahomes has great intuition. During the current season, he topped the league in scrambles with an EPA of 40.7. Alongside Jackson, he tied for the league lead with 26 first downs on scrambles, but Mahomes was able to get there on 51 scramble attempts. We needed 75 for Jackson. Not only did Mahomes rank second in scramble EPA in 2021, but he also rated fourth in 2022, despite the fact that he scrambled less frequently than the players who came before him.

Throughout the last three postseasons, the 28-year-old has had a scramble ERA of 21.3, which is the highest in the league. He is able to offer an enormous amount of value with his legs, despite the fact that he is not a part of the designed run game and is not permitted to sneak by coach Andy Reid due to a knee injury that he sustained in 2019.

For a better understanding of how this unfolds, watch another one of Mahomes’ scrambles from the game that took place in October against the Jets. As a result of the first overwhelming pass rush on the interior, certain quarterbacks would completely lose their effectiveness.

The fact that the Jets have another rusher winning to the outside when Mahomes is attempting to flee the pocket is something that would be a complete surprise to virtually every other quarterback. In most cases, even mobile passers would end up taking this to the edge, and the play would end with either a sack or an incompletion that went out of bounds.

He, on the other hand, possesses the mental and physical resources necessary to go against the grain, escape from two defenders, and pick up twelve yards. Kansas City is currently facing a first-and-ten situation, which might have been a third-and-10 or a third-and-15 situation.

It has become even more apparent that Mahomes is capable of avoiding sacks during the postseason. Even though he had a severe ankle sprain, he was not sacked once during the divisional round of the previous season when he was playing against the Jaguars. He returned 32 passes.

Even though the Bengals had sacked him three times in 49 tries, the Eagles, who had racked up 78 sacks through their first 19 games of the season, did not sack him once on any of their 31 dropbacks. In my recap of the Super Bowl, I mentioned that although the Philadelphia squad produced sacks on one-third of its pressures during the season, they were unable to bring him down on any of their ten pressures overall.

Everything is the same as it was in 2023. A healthy Mahomes did not suffer a single sack in the 68 dropbacks that occurred over the first two rounds of the postseason. This was the case even after the Dolphins blitzed him more than fifty percent of the time during the wild-card round.

Hayden Winks of Underdog Fantasy made the observation on Twitter that Mahomes had gone 16 consecutive quarters without being sacked in the postseason prior to the Ravens taking him down twice in the AFC Championship Game. Since the beginning of this postseason run, he has been sacked twice on 112 dropbacks, which is a sack rate of 1.8%.

During the Super Bowl game that took place between the Chiefs and the 49ers four years ago, San Francisco was able to exert a significant amount of influence over the game because to its pass rush. Over the course of the first forty-eight minutes of the game, Nick Bosa and his teammates sacked Mahomes three times on thirty-five dropbacks and pressured him forty percent of the time.

Although the Chiefs were able to successfully complete the third-and-15 pass to Hill in the fourth quarter, the pass rush was not as effective as it had been. During the remaining portion of the game, the 49ers were able to come up with one sack and two pressures. The sack was for one yard and occurred on a play in which Mahomes was already performing scrambling.

During the first three quarters of games this 49ers team played during the regular season, they were quite good against the pass. However, as the fourth quarter arrived and the pass rush became exhausted, the Niners went from third to nineteenth place in terms of the quarterback rating that they allowed.

There is no such split with the 2023 49ers, who are significantly more impressive in coverage and are not as dependent on their pass rush as the current team is. To accomplish what the Eagles were unable to do, they will need to put pressure on Mahomes and actually bring him down. In addition to this, they will have to deal with a glitch that we observed in the 2022 Chiefs post-Hill, which has been essential in the improvement of the offense throughout this postseason.

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