The Kansas City Chiefs have gotten off to a great start of the 2024 NFL season. Kansas City is 2-0 after surviving a close game against a feisty Cincinnati team. One factor that has kept the Chiefs in both of their wins this season is the return of their deep passing game.
Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs have made a concerted effort to increase their deep passing game in 2024. Kansas City signed Marquise Brown in free agency and drafted Xavier Worthy to add deep threats on offense.
According to Next Gen Stats, Patrick Mahomes has already thrown two touchdown passes that traveled over 20 air yards this season. Those include a 35-yard touchdown pass to Xavier Worthy and a 44-yard touchdown to Rashee Rice. Shockingly, that means Mahomes has already thrown more touchdown passes on throws with 20+ air yards than he has in 2022 and 2023 combined, per ProFootballTalk.
The Chiefs are not using the same strategy that they did when they had Tyreek Hill on offense. However, Hill is a unique talent who it is impossible to replicate. That said, Xavier Worthy brings a different type of blazing speed that still presents problems for opposing defenses.
Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce honest about lack of production early in the season
That's all well and good, but the deep passing changes aren't good for everyone on the Chiefs.
Travis Kelce has not been as dominant through two weeks as he usually is. Kelce only has four receptions for 39 yards after only getting one catch for five yards against the Bengals.
However, Kelce seems to be taking things in stride.
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“There's a lot of things that have to go right for anybody to get the ball,” Kelce said. “Outside of our running back where you're literally just handing it to him, if you want to catch the football. One, it has to be the right play. Two, it has to be the right coverage. Three, it has to be everybody doing their job up front and on the back end in terms of running the routes for everything to kind of match up and be in sync. For whatever reason these past two games, it hasn't gone that way for me — and that's football, man. I'm not about to sit here and get frustrated about it. I used to get really really pissed off and almost lose my cool a lot of the time from not having that success, knowing I demand that out of myself.”
Ultimately, Kelce just wants to go out there and play for his guys.
“I just like to play the game to such a high level of accountability that it's just tough for me to deal with being mediocre or having stats that represent that,” Kelce said. “I stopped caring about stats about four or five years ago and I just went out there and started to just play free and wanted to play for my guys. Sure enough, I think that's a better mentality.”
Kelce will try to get back on track against the Falcons in Week 3.
