The ominous indicator arrived 65 seconds after kickoff Sunday, in the form of the very first pass Patrick Mahomes released.
It wasn’t that the third-down throw fell incomplete.
It was why. Mahomes hit a wide open Noah Gray in the hands, but Gray, standing beyond the first-down marker and prepared to give the Chiefs some momentum on their opening drive, just plain dropped it.
And so it began. There are a lot of valid questions about the Chiefs’ offense in the aftermath of their 20-10 loss to the Texans — whether it be play design, play execution or play calls. I’ve explored some of those over the last couple of years, but most notably and recently the game-changing fourth-down call Sunday.
But there is a simple fix that would have prevented the lowest scoring output under Patrick Mahomes in more than two years: Catch the dang ball. The forthcoming exercise isn’t to excuse everything gone wrong. Instead, it began as an exploration to determine just how significant of a role the most basic of fundamentals played in the Chiefs shrinking to somewhere around a 10% chance of reaching the postseason.
The conclusion? You’d be hardpressed to find a factor more significant, at least last week.
The NFL doesn’t officially track drops, but it’s pretty easy for us to do on our own. The Chiefs very clearly dropped at least six passes against the Texans, and that’s using a kind and conservative grading system.
It doesn’t include Tyquan Thornton’s chance to make a play in the end zone for what could have been a 48-yard touchdown, since Texans cornerback Kamari Lassiter pried that ball loose; and it doesn’t include Rashee Rice dropping an 8-yard pass before Texans safety Jalen Pitre de-cleated him.
