‘Gonna stop bull(bleeping)‘: How Patrick Mahomes turned a bad game into sealing a win

Patrick Mahomes walked into the halftime locker room Sunday unsure of his next words but certain of his message.

For one quarter, he had put on a show on the largest stage in the NFL, a setting that turned A-list celebrities into seat-fillers at MetLife Stadium.

And then, well, he stunk up the place.

Looked like a rookie quarterback trying to learn on the fly what he could or couldn’t get away with, and the Jets defense returned a pretty resounding answer: Not much.

By the time he arrived in that locker room, he had just produced one of the worst quarters of his career. That would be the message, he had determined.

The words?

“I’m going to stop bull(bleeping),” he said, as a few teammates would later recall it, and we’ll acknowledge their recollection might not be word-for-word perfect. “It’s on me.”

The Chiefs beat the Jets 23-20 in New Jersey, but for once it wasn’t because of Mahomes and, heck, for awhile you wondered if they could win in spite of him.

For a half-decade, we have been treated to countless versions of a quarterback who has supplied a couple of Super Bowls and the matching MVP trophies. But on Sunday, in front of one of football’s largest TV audiences, we saw Mahomes in a rare role:

The problem.

The Chiefs led 17-0 early, and it felt like it was just plain over. The Jets, after all, hadn’t scored 17 points in regulation in a game all season. Then, wouldn’t you know it, the quarterback took over.

The other one.

Mahomes was outplayed by Jets quarterback Zach Wilson for major chunks of the game. Wilson finished with more completions, yards and touchdowns and, very notably, fewer interceptions. Imagine saying those sentences, and then knowing we’re talking about a game the Chiefs won.

Mahomes was picked twice in the second quarter alone, a sequence that begged the Jets to find their way back into it. And they did. They were terrible throws. Like, really awful throws. But worse decisions. It’s not the first time we’ve seen the Chiefs race out to a large lead, only for the quarterback to start to play around a little bit.

Start to, well, bull(bleep) a little bit.

If he were a major-league pitcher, a la his father, we would have been checking the radar gun after every throw, making sure the velocity was still there. Because, man, the stuff was not.

Which got me wondering: What is the best quarterback in football like when he is the one messing everything up?

“He’s the same old Pat,” Chiefs tight end Blake Bell said.

“Cool as a cucumber,” left tackle Donovan Smith said.

“He’s one of those guys who is always even keel, but at the same time always high energy, no matter what,” wide receiver Marquez Valdes-Scantling said. “He’s the exact same guy. The exact same.”

That was the original thought for this column — trying to gather a feel for what the in-game interactions must be like when Batman leaves his Batmobile parked at home in the garage. Some good enough anecdotes there, too. After one interception, Mahomes made a point to stroll along the sideline, basically ensuring every person in red knew he wasn’t playing well.

“We got 10 other guys on offense out there who screw up, too,” offensive lineman Nick Allegretti recalled thinking.

The conversations with his teammates, however, revealed a deeper meaning: It was his way of putting the past behind him. Of moving on from it.

Which set up the finale.

With a much more familiar Mahomes.

The Chiefs scored only three points on their final two drives, and they sealed the game with them. One drive provided the lead. One extinguished the clock.

And who returned? That guy. The better version.

Mahomes completed his first seven passes on the drive that wrapped the end of the third quarter and the open of the fourth, setting up the go-ahead field goal. And after Wilson bobbled a shotgun snap, the Chiefs took over the ball with 7:24 to play.

They never gave it back. He never gave it back, instead teasing the crowd with it, arms stretched outward, the nose of the ball tilted toward the air.

This was one of those any-way-possible drives, except that for one night, it countered the narrative rather than tucked neatly into it. He scrambled for 14 yards on third-and-13, only to realize a holding flag called it back. So on the next play, no big deal, he scrambled for 25 on third-and-23.

If not for yet another holding flag, someone would probably be penning 800 words on his cross-body throw to tight end Travis Kelce to convert another third-down play. Oh, but the Chiefs would see one more third down, a third-and-8, and I’ll give you one guess as to how many yards Mahomes would gain on a scramble.

Ball game.

The very best NFL quarterback lost his very best attribute for about an hour and a half, perhaps longer even. Then he told his teammates he lost it. Then, after some help from a run game and his defense, he sealed a football game anyway — with a different attribute. His legs.

There’s at least correlation between those points, his teammates believe. Maybe even causation. Mahomes said afterward that nobody in the room pointed fingers when things weren’t going well. That’s not entirely true. He did. At himself.

Others pointed there too. For a different reason.

“He could throw 10 of them,” safety Justin Reid said, referring to interceptions, “and I’d tell you the same thing: Give the ball to 15.”

Why?

“Because we all know what’s going to happen — and he knows it, too.”

Whether he’s coming off his best.

Or his worst.