I think Mahomes had an eye injury from impact like a small retinal tear that caused vision problems for him during part of the season.
I think he must have taken another hit at the end of the first half or early in the 2nd half that caused those problems to reoccur.
Just a stupid pet theory but it could explain a lot of his Jekyll and Hyde play.
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Mahomes got skittish after a couple of mistakes and started playing not to lose instead of playing to win. That was the issue plain and simple. There wasn't any intentional throwing the game or not wanting to play the Superbowl. He got in his own head like earlier in the year and couldn't shake it.
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What mistakes? He was blowing the bengals out in the first half. He came out in the second half and played like the worst quarterback in the league. Mahomes is the best, but when he's playing that shitty-- in that situation -- the coaching staff has to take the ball out of his hands. Bench him like they benched Montana. It's the ****ing superbowl.
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Didn't even have to bench him.

Just run the fucking ball. Get the offense moving a bit to get his mind off the end of the half.

They kept trying to force the issue by throwing into 8 man coverages which only hurt his confidence issue more.
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First mistake was at the end of the half when he threw it to Tyreek instead of throwing it away. That started it. Then he had a couple 3rd downs that were just a bit wide(trying to make sure Bengals couldn't get a hand on it). Then he ends up with the tip that gets picked by the DE and he completely went into a shell.
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Having had a few days to process what happened I think there's a few things that need to be said. How many top QB's have been asked to win championships withput a decent defense and a reliable run-game?

Allen= number one defense

Brady= Top defenses his entire career & had very good run-game in tampa

Lamar= High ranking defenses and number one run-games

Rodgers= Decent defense and very good run-game

Etc etc

But for most of Pat's career he's had patches of good defense, and a stretch here or there when an RB gets hot.

The key moving forward for Veach among many things must be to put together a top 10 defense and get an RB wjo will murder teams who try to drop 7 or 8 deep. Do that and we'll see more glory again.

Imagine how Golden State felt losing to Lebron when 3-1 up in the finals? They got KD and dominated. It's time to get our "KD" now i'e defense and run-game.
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The defense was actually pretty solid this year. I do think pass rush needs to be upgraded, hopefully in a cheap manner if possible. They did not get a strong enough pass rush in their 6 games against Burrow, Allen, Herbert.
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The defense did their job on Sunday.

Stop trying to put this on the defense when Pat fucking choked.

Sneed literally got him the ball at midfield and he couldn’t even get us in fucking FG position.
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Mahomes choked for sure. Massive choke by him.

The defense had a chance to keep them buried when it was 21-3. Bengals drove right down the field for a TD. A punt would have been huge there. Credit to Bengals for not giving up.
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It was good enough in the Bengals game but was not “solid” this season. It looked like shit against good QBs and feasted on bad ones.
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All the offense needed was more than 3 pts in the 2nd half. Defense did their job in the 2nd half.
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Would have been 0-6 against Burrow, Allen, Herbert without some overtime miracles. Defense made just enough stops against Allen & Herbert to reach overtime in those games. Three big stops on 4th down against Herbert. A few punts by Buffalo.
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Eh, it really shouldn't have mattered. You knew they were going to score at least ONE touchdown. And of course, we had a golden opportunity to answer right back and add to the lead right before half. And then add to it some more at the beginning of the third. So, as much as it bugged me that it was a long play made possible by poor tackling (and an uncalled offensive hold), I don't think Cincy scoring late is a black mark. The OFFENSE had a chance to keep them buried.

I mean, if you had told me before the game that Cincy would score 24 points in regulation, I would've been sure we would've won, because I was very confident we were going to score at least 31 points (I was thinking we'd win 31-24, 31-27, 38-27, something like that). And by God, we should have.
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Er I'm talking about the OVERALL performance of the defense this season!!..not just sunday. And imo a top ten defense could easily win you that game against Cinci just like the Pats D won Brady superbowls several times. Pat is being asked to do more with non of what other QB's have around them and it needs to be addressed..period.
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We definitely need to build the defense but they play well enough to get the win for sure. You can't stop scoring and win games. Most of the time you must keep moving the ball and getting points. Get the 3 before the half and all you needed was tow FG or one td and we would have won. The offense just went completely shit sideways for the second time against Cincy.
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