On record night passing, QB Patrick Mahomes’ legs spark comeback

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Compared to the average person, Patrick Mahomes is far from slow, but he won’t soon be confused for Michael Vick — or even Russell Wilson — when it comes to pure speed.

During the 2017 NFL Combine, Mahomes ran a 4.80-second 40-yard dash, respectable but not exactly blazing — and the Kansas City Chiefs’ quarterback seems to know better than anyone, frequently poking fun at his fleetness afoot.

But a funny thing often happens when Mahomes breaks the pocket and takes off running — he consistently makes plays.

Three times on the Chiefs’ game-tying drive during a 20-17 overtime win Sunday against the Tennessee Titans, it was Mahomes’ legs that did the damage.

It was a 20-yard scramble on third-and-17 from Kansas City’s 31-yard line that turned the game around.

“That was a good one,” Reid said. “They turned their back on him. They were playing man coverage.”

After being flushed from the pocket to the right, Mahomes took off down the field before cutting back to the middle of the field and moving the sticks.

“As I was running, I felt the safety kind of over-pursuing, so I just kind of shot my shot,” Mahomes said.

Facing another third down in the red zone, Mahomes scrambled to the right again, gave Jeffery Simmons a hesitation okie-doke inside the 5-yard line then powered into the end zone for the Chiefs’ only touchdown of the second half.

“On the touchdown run, I probably could have just thrown it to JuJu (Smith-Schuster), but I had fully committed to run at that point,” said Mahomes, who led Kansas City with 63 yards on six carries. “We were just battling at the end of the game. We were trying to find a way to win and our defense kept us in the game long enough to do that.”

Of course, Mahomes gets paid to throw the football not run — and he did plenty of that, too.

Mahomes finished 43 of 68 for 446 yards with a touchdown and an interception.

The completions and attempts are career-highs for Mahomes. In fact, the 68 passing attempts is tied for the third-most in a game in NFL history.

“I did not know I threw that many, but — yeah — at Texas Tech obviously I threw a couple,” Mahomes said.

The 446 yards are tied for the third-most in Mahomes’ career and give him 10 400-yard games, including the playoffs.

“We weren’t getting too far with the run game, so we thought we needed to throw it a little bit,” Chiefs coach Andy Reid said. “I’ve seen him do that in college a few times and he did pretty good.”Mahomes scrambled to the left on the two-point conversion to tie the game and eventually force overtime.

Defensive tackle Chris Jones said there was no doubt Mahomes running wild on the game-tying drive provided the spark the team had needed to complete the comeback.

“Of course, I’m all eyes on Pat,” Jones said. “He threw for 450-plus yards; that’s special itself. At that moment in time, we needed something special to happen.”

Safety Justin Reid also watching Mahomes’ fourth-quarter heroics — and said it reminded him of the touchdown run he had against Tennessee in the AFC Championship Game en route to a Super Bowl LIV victory three years ago.

“I got a good look at the touchdown (run),” Justin Reid said. “That one looked pretty familiar from a couple years ago. The guy just — that’s a gritty win all the way across the board.”