Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes finally broke out the behind-the-back pass in a game situation Saturday, as he used it on the Detroit Lions during their preseason contest. Mahomes, however, asserts that he did not do it just to show off.
Mahomes went behind-the-back to Travis Kelce on third and short during the first quarter of the game, and completed the pass for a gain of about eight yards.
MAHOMES BEHIND THE BACK 🫢
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Mahomes apparently was not going for the highlight. Once he was out of the game, he spoke to Trent Green, who was broadcasting the game, and admitted that the throw was mostly to spite Travis Kelce. Mahomes said Kelce ran the wrong route, much to his frustration, which forced the quarterback to improvise.
.@tkelce ran the wrong route, so @patrickmahomes threw it behind his back because he was mad at him. 😅
"Out of spite, I threw a behind-the-back pass."
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“Long story short, Travis didn’t run the route he was supposed to run,” Mahomes said. “It was a behind-the-back pass because I was mad. I was pissed off at Travis. He was supposed to run a flat route. I don’t know if you could hear me on the broadcast — I’m yelling at him, and then he doesn’t run it. Out of spite, I threw a behind-the-back pass, but now it’s going to be a highlight.”
Mahomes added that the behind-the-back pass was always going to come in an improvised moment, never planned.
“It can’t be planned. It’s got to be, just, naturally happening,” Mahomes said. “I actually forgot about it until halftime. It wasn’t like I planned that at all.”
Make no mistake: Mahomes has definitely been working on this in practice. It sounds like he did so as a failsafe as opposed to a planned play, though.
Mahomes and Kelce are tight, and as we’ve seen in the past, this is a hefty dose of good-natured roasting, even if Mahomes probably was legitimately frustrated with the missed route. As the quarterback said, he turned it into a highlight to the point that nobody else would have known that Kelce screwed up without Mahomes saying so.
