The Kansas City Chiefs won’t have a whole lot to play for in Week 18, which has some questioning if Patrick Mahomes will even see the field against the Los Angeles Chargers.
When asked about the possibility of resting this Sunday, Mahomes said he wasn’t sure whether or not he would play.
“I didn’t know that, but I kind of just let Coach (Andy) Reid make all those decisions,” Mahomes said, via the Chiefs’ official team website. “If he wants us to build off this momentum I’ll be ready to roll. If he wants to give us some rest I’ll get that rest, prepare for whoever we’re going to play, and get ready for the playoffs.”
Reid has not even made an official decision yet, saying “I haven’t gotten there yet” when asked if he would be playing his starters in the season finale.
It might not be a bad idea for Reid to at least let his offensive starters play for a bit in order to get into some kind of rhythm heading into the Wild Card Round of the playoffs.
Kansas City’s offense has struggled this year, scoring under 20 points seven times. It is averaging just 22.4 points per game, well off the league-leading 29.2 points per game it logged last season.
Even in this past weekend’s win over the Cincinnati Bengals, the Chiefs didn’t look great offensively, although they certainly looked better than they did in their Christmas Day loss to the Las Vegas Raiders.
Mahomes himself has had a down year by his standards.
Through 16 games, he has thrown for 4,183 yards, 27 touchdowns and 14 interceptions while completing 67.2 percent of his passes and posting a passer rating of 92.6.
After leading the NFL with 308.8 passing yards per game in 2022, Mahomes is averaging just 261.4 yards per game this season and has eclipsed 300 yards passing just four times all year long.
Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs captured their eighth straight AFC West division title with their win over the Bengals and sit at 10-6. They are locked into the No. 3 seed in the conference, so no matter what they do against the Chargers, they can’t move up or down in the standings.
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