1. What can Marino’s career production arc tell us about the state of Mahomes? Time to find a bookend tackle in Kansas City.
Marino shattered the NFL record with 48 touchdown passes in his first full season as the Dolphins’ quarterback. It was no fluke. Marino, part of the 1983 quarterback draft class featuring fellow Hall of Famers John Elway and Jim Kelly, led the league in passing yards and touchdowns in each of his first three full seasons as a starter.
Mahomes began his career with similar audacity. He passed for 5,097 yards with 50 touchdowns and 12 interceptions in his first full season as the Kansas City Chiefs’ starter. His first three seasons as a starter were the modern equivalent to Marino’s, with Mahomes throwing nearly five touchdown passes for every interception, a 114-23 ratio from 2018-20 (see table below).
2018-2020, 114-23 TD-INT, 4.96 TDs/INT
2021-22, 72-25 TD-INT, 2.88 TDs/INT
2023-24, 35-23 TD-INT, 1.52 TDs/INT
The relative slide in production for Mahomes more recently, punctuated by his unrecognizable stat line this season (eight touchdowns with nine interceptions), tracks with Marino’s career production timeline. Supporting casts change. Opposing defenses adjust. Even the best must recalibrate.
Mahomes’ Chiefs have obviously won more than Marino’s Dolphins ever did, with a 3-0 lead in Lombardi Trophies. Marino’s experience still could provide a blueprint for the Chiefs in one specific area.
While those Dolphins offenses fell off as receivers Mark Clayton and Mark Duper aged, the offensive line was the bigger problem. Hall of Fame center Dwight Stephenson suffered a career-ending injury in Marino’s fifth season. Injuries limited Marino’s left tackle through the late 1980s.
Marino’s quick release helped, same as Mahomes’ scrambling bails out the Chiefs’ problems at tackle. But do the Chiefs really want Mahomes’ scramble rate to continue increasing at its current rate?
2024- 7.5%
2023- 7.6%
2022- 6.4%
2021- 6.5%
2020- 6.5%
2019- 4.8%
2018- 4.6%
While Aaron Rodgers’ scramble rate fell with each of his four MVP seasons, from 7.5 percent in 2011 to 3.0 percent in 2021, Mahomes is increasingly using his legs to escape trouble as his 30th birthday approaches next season. It’s working, but is the trend sustainable?
“It takes a lot of effort to get everyone on the same page for the scramble drill,” a veteran coach said of the current Chiefs. “The only guys who can do it when you need it in a pinch are the veterans. They get slow and worn out. Mahomes is a gladiator in the Coliseum and the lions are right on him.”
Marino’s production spiked in the early 1990s after the Dolphins solidified their left tackle situation by using a first-round pick on Richmond Webb, who began his career with seven consecutive Pro Bowls (Marino suffered a torn Achilles’ tendon in 1993 and struggled to maintain elite production thereafter).
The Chiefs used first- or second-round picks on receivers Skyy Moore, Rashee Rice and Xavier Worthy over the past three drafts. They spent a conditional 2024 fourth-rounder on veteran DeAndre Hopkins last week.
These moves were all understandable, but is the fix for Mahomes the same as it was for Marino? The Chiefs opened the season with second-round rookie Kingsley Suamataia at left tackle, then replaced him with 2023 third-rounder Wanya Morris. On the right side, Jawaan Taylor has a league-high 26 penalties since the start of last season. What if these situations do not stabilize?
“I might find a way to get a real tackle, a legitimate one-side-or-the-other tackle, and solidify that for the next five years to protect the quarterback so he is not running for his life and having to make all the plays,” a longtime personnel executive said.
Perhaps the Chiefs remain confident Suamataia or Morris will develop. The trade deadline (Nov. 5) provides an unlikely avenue for upgrading. Free agency or the draft are the more likely resources (Kansas City holds Tennessee’s pick in the third round from the L’Jarius Sneed trade, in addition to its own third-rounder, so there is capital available to maneuver).
The Chiefs’ ability to win every week under changing circumstances almost no matter what is remarkable. They rank ninth in offensive EPA per play and first in offensive success rate (the defense ranks sixth and 17th, respectively, in those categories, per TruMedia). And they have Mahomes to pull out the close games almost every time.
But as the table below shows, the Chiefs’ 23.5-point scoring average during their 13-game winning streak ranks last among the 12 winning streaks of 13 games or longer since 2000.
Longest win streaks (inc. playoffs) since 2000
21 game streak- Patriots (2003-04), 23.7 PPG, -3.8 Avg Spread
19 game streak- Packers (2010-11), 33.8 PPG, -7.0 Avg Spread
18 game streak- Patriots (2007), 35.6 PPG, -13.4 Avg Spread
15 game streak- Steelers (2004), 23.7 PPG, -2.8 Avg Spread
14 game streak- Panthers (2015), 32.1 PPG, -3.4 Avg Spread
14 game streak- Colts (2009), 28.1 PPG, -5.4 Avg Spread
13 game streak- Chiefs (2023-24), 23.5 PPG, -1.7 Avg Spread
13 game streak- Chiefs (2019-20), 30.8 PPG, -6.6 Avg Spread
13 game streak- Patriots (2014-15), 33.2 PPG, -7.2 Avg Spread
13 game streak- Saints (2009), 35.8 PPG, -8.2 Avg Spread
13 game streak- Patriots (2018-19), 31.0 PPG, -10.2 Avg Spread
13 game streak- Colts (2005), 30.2 PPG, -10.2 Avg Spread
With some diminished weaponry and instability at tackle, Mahomes has thrown a league-high 23 interceptions over his last 23 regular-season games (since the start of 2023). He has the fifth-lowest sack rate but has taken the second-most hits among quarterbacks (136). He ranks 24th in passer rating over that span, 13th in EPA per pass play and eighth in passing touchdowns. He’s still a unanimous Tier 1 quarterback — in the middle of this uneven stretch, he won his third Super Bowl MVP — but the abrupt change in statistical profile is hard to ignore.
Mahomes completed 27 of 38 passes for 262 yards and two touchdowns against Las Vegas. It was a bit of an adventure.
The Chiefs’ lead was 17-13 in the third quarter when back-to-back holding penalties against Morris, the left tackle, forced Kansas City into first-and-16 from its own 2-yard line. Mahomes threw over the middle for Travis Kelce, only to have the Raiders tip the ball and intercept it, giving them possession at the Kansas City 3-yard line. The Chiefs’ defense turned over the ball on downs.
Does winning mask all?
“Andy Reid doesn’t miss anything,” the opposing coach said. “He knows there are many ways to win a game. He has done it with Tyreek Hill and he’s seen it work just fine in a two-back offense with Edgar Bennett (in Green Bay three decades ago). He drafts Mahomes, watches all the college tape and that is where we are right now. But he is an offensive lineman at heart, and he doesn’t miss that (the tackle position needs help). Andy doesn’t win 300 games because he feels like he is in a comfort zone. That is not the way it is, even when you win (13) in a row.”