Here’s a weakness Kansas City Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes says he’s working to correct
Patrick Mahomes’ offseason was different this year ... and he says that was a good thing.
In 2021 — following the Chiefs’ Super Bowl loss to Tampa Bay — Mahomes had foot surgery to repair a turf toe injury. The aftermath required two months of rehab time, which also cut into Mahomes’ to-do list.
“Pretty much I was working out,” Mahomes said, “but I couldn’t do much.”
Mahomes, then, fully appreciated what he had during these last few months.
Because he was healthy at the end of last season, Mahomes says he was able to get back to work quicker. That meant instead of trying to get back to his previous level, he could “build on stuff, work on some of the weaknesses that I had.”
So what, in particular, did Mahomes believe was a deficiency?
“Mechanically, I just want to make sure I have a better base,” Mahomes said Friday at Chiefs training camp at Missouri Western. “I think, with having the foot issues the two seasons ago, I kind of got some bad habits of falling off that foot, not planting in the right spot and making the right throw. And that’ll affect your accuracy.”
Mahomes said the problem was especially apparent early last season, when coach Andy Reid brought it up a few times. That, in part, resulted in Mahomes believing that he progressed some late in the year.
“When you’re banged up a little bit, you try to work around those things,” Reid said of Mahomes’ previously injured toe. “Sometimes, if you work around it, you might get into throwing you off a tick. And normally, it’s the player that knows that, because they’ve got it down to that finest point.”
Mahomes believes his base also has been helped by building muscle through rehab and weightlifting sessions. He said working on this aspect for an entire offseason made him feel like he was in “a way better spot than I was going into training camp last year.”
The key now, he says, is to keep building off that in the weeks to come.
“Just trying to make sure that I keep getting better,” Mahomes said. “I want to make sure that I can do whatever I can to put the team in the best position and make us the best that we can possibly be.”
This story was originally published July 25, 2022 at 3:08 PM with the headline "Here’s a weakness Kansas City Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes says he’s working to correct."
