Statistically, Patrick Mahomes is off to a slow start. He’s coming off a weekend in which he passed for his fewest yards in a full game (151), and has thrown as many interceptions (three) as touchdowns over two games.
But history tells us improvement for those numbers is imminent. Why? The Chiefs are hitting the road for the first time.
Strange as it seems, Mahomes has put up better statistics in the hostility of road games than the comfort of home over his career.
- Touchdown passes: home 103, road 119
- Passer rating: home 99.1, road 107.6
Mahomes is even in interceptions with 33 at home and the same number in road games.
His record as a starter? Also the same, 38-11 at home and on the road, which calculates to 77.6%. That includes a “home” game in Germany and an “away” game in Mexico. The Chiefs won both, so removing those keeps the records even.
Tom Brady and Peyton Manning were solid performers on the road, but their home/road splits didn’t approach being even. Brady won 82.6% of his home games and 67.3% on the road. Manning: 76.7% at home, 63.9% on the road.
Nobody has overcome the road game obstacles like travel, crowd noise, officials’ calls and stadium unfamiliarity like Mahomes. The road trend gets its first 2024 test on Sunday Night Football against the Atlanta Falcons. Kickoff at Mercedes-Benz Stadium is 7:20 p.m. (Central).
“The mindset is: You really have to sharpen up your details,” Mahomes said, asked about road game success on Wednesday.
That seems to happen when Mahomes and the Chiefs hit the road. Eleven of his top 14 passing yards games and eight of his top 13 passer rating games have been on the road.
Mahomes set the tone for road success in his NFL debut. With the Chiefs’ playoff seeding sewn up, Mahomes came off the bench and started the 2017 regular-season finale at Denver. The Chiefs won, and Mahomes orchestrated a fourth-quarter game-winning drive.
In Mahomes’ six-plus years as a starter, the NFL home teams are winning at about a 55% clip, and that includes the 2020 COVID-19-altered season when stadiums were empty or near empty and the road teams won more than half of the games.
Until last season, Mahomes had never played in a road playoff game. That changed when, as the third seed, the Chiefs visited Buffalo and Baltimore on successive weekends and won both. He recorded his two highest passer rating games of the four playoff contests on the way to his third Super Bowl title and MVP award.
The Chiefs have excelled as a road team under Andy Reid, with and without Mahomes. Since Reid became head coach in 2013, there has been one losing road season, in 2014 when they finished 3-5. One more was 4-4 and nine others were above .500.
Road success has been part of Reid’s coaching DNA.
