Patrick Mahomes — Week 1: Fifteen Yards on Second and Fifteen
2026 NFL Season · Half-PPR Scoring · Tuesday, Sep 15
Mahomes completed 15 of 27 throws for 184 yards, two touchdowns and one interception, took two sacks, and scrambled four times for 27 yards, including the 15-yard touchdown on second and fifteen with 8:20 left in the first quarter. All three throws the play-by-play labels deep fell incomplete, one of them the interception from his own three, in a 31–10 win over the Broncos.
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Nothing to nothing, eight 20 left in the first quarter, second and 15 at the Denver 15 after a holding penalty. Patrick Mahomes kept it up the middle and ran 15 yards for the touchdown. +2.8 expected points added — expected points added is what a play was worth given down, distance and field position — and 4.6 points of win probability, the chance of winning the game after the play against before it. That was the first score of the night, and on a night the Chiefs ran for 224 yards, the quarterback's legs were part of it.
The line: 15 completions on 27 throws, a hundred 84 yards, two touchdowns, one interception, two sacks, −2.3 expected points on 29 pass plays. Four scrambles for 27 yards, two of them first downs — the touchdown, and eight yards on third and eight with eight 41 left in the half. Before halftime it was eight of 18 for 62 yards; after it, seven of nine for a hundred 22. The touchdown passes were short: 13 yards to Rashee Rice on first and 10 with a minute 46 left in the half, tied seven to seven, and two yards to Kenneth Walker on first and goal on the second snap of the fourth quarter. The three throws labeled deep all fell incomplete, and one of them was the interception — first and 10 from the Kansas City three with nine 47 left in the third, up 21 to seven, deep middle for Xavier Worthy, picked off by Brandon Jones and returned to the five. −5.8 expected points and −8.4 points of win probability, the worst Chiefs play of the night by both measures. Denver turned it into a field goal.
The ball went six times each to Worthy and Walker, five to Travis Kelce, two each to Rice and Emmett Johnson, one each to Cyrus Allen, Tyquan Thornton, Jake Briningstool and Noah Gray, and two throws were credited to no receiver. Kelce's five came out at +5.0 expected points, the most on the team, almost all of it on the 59-yarder on third and six; Johnson's two were next at +4.3. Worthy's six were worth −8.5. On third down Mahomes threw eight times, completed five, and converted four; the Chiefs converted nine of 16. 18 pass plays before halftime and 11 after, against 17 designed runs before and 14 after.
Back in June the preview leaned watchlist on Mahomes — the thirteenth quarterback at pick 93, nine months off a torn ACL — and named two things to watch: the knee, meaning the mobility and rushing volume his value had come to depend on, and the accuracy, the thing that had quietly slipped. Monday answered the first one: four scrambles, 27 yards, a touchdown and a third-down conversion, with no visible limit on the play-by-play. The second one it did not answer well — 15 of 27, all three deep balls incomplete, and an interception thrown from his own three. One game does not settle either. The Chiefs are home to the Colts on Sunday night, the twentieth.
_Data via nflverse._
When Patrick Mahomes's week moves the numbers, you'll know — every episode, in one weekly email.
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