It feels a bit strange raising this issue but:
are we all sure Mahones is still Mahones?
Sure, the game plan of short passes doesn't play to his strengths but, even so, his stat.s are terrible.
He has 8 TDs v 9 Int. - in 8 games!
You'd think that short passing would mitigate against interceptions.
Having said that, he should be good this week.
He's at home to TB - the easiest oppositon for QBs this year.
I think KC are just rushing the ball more and passing less and that costs him points. Mahomes has never passed for less than 4000yd since he took over as QB in 2018. But he is on course to do that this year having passed so far for 1651 yds. Compare this to 2021 when over his first 7 games he had passed 2093 yds. His attempts are down as well 277 for 187 completions in the first 7 games 2021 compared to 225 for 154 this year but the completion percentage is almost the same. Passing attempts have been 658 in 2021, then 648 and 597 last year.
WR in 2021 Tyreek and Hardman had 11 TD between them. But in 2022 it was Juju and Valdez-Scanting with only 5 TD and last year the rookie Rashee Rice and MVS for 8 TD. This year Rice is out after 4 games and it is another rookie in Worthy and Hopkins. An aging Kelce, a de facto WR, dropped below 1000yds in 2023 for the first time since 2015.
No surprise, at the same time the KC lead RB has increased the number of rushes. CEH was 119 rushes in 2021 then Pacheco took over and went 170 in 2022 then 205 in 2023.
I do not think you can underestimate KC. They are still Superbowl contenders for mine but I think they are just dealing with circumstances as best they can. So is Mahomes still Mahomes? The NFL version still is but maybe the Fantasy version is not quite the same.
