Chiefs, Patrick Mahomes are one change from big improvement. They’ve made it difficult

This is going to seem like nitpicking.

It’s not.

The Chiefs are 9-1 after a loss in Buffalo on Sunday, and thus still occupy the top spot in the AFC heading into the final third of the season. It’s fine. It’s better than fine, actually, and it’s certainly better than this time a year ago. That’s why this might seem hypercritical.

But there’s an issue that keeps popping up during the Chiefs’ games — significant enough that those nine wins could’ve come a bit easier, and significant enough that the one loss might have never happened.

The Kansas City Chiefs still cannot hit the deep shot.

Patrick Mahomes cannot hit the deep shot.

The organization spent an entire offseason — the draft, free agency, scheme evaluation and summer and training camp practices, all of it — trying to improve their downfield passing game. Here are the effects of that concentration in its most succinct and recent form:

Whiff.

Whiff.

Whiff.

A year ago, the Chiefs threw fewer downfield shots than any other season since Patrick Mahomes arrived, per data on PFF. Naturally, they completed fewer of them, too. And yet for all of the conversation to change that last offseason, they are throwing the ball 20-plus yards beyond the line of scrimmage half as frequently as they did last year. Only 6.4% of Mahomes’ pass attempts are deep, by far the lowest percentage in the league.

There’s too much risk-aversion from all involved— that whole gunslinger thing doesn’t reflect reality. We saw offensive coordinator Matt Nagy on the sideline praising Mahomes for taking a shot in Los Angeles, even when it didn’t appear open. That was two months ago.

Where did it go?

Actually, for the last five weeks, it’s been right there, and the Chiefs are just flat-out whiffing on the opportunities.

In sequential order:

• In Week 7 in San Francisco, the Chiefs opened the second half with a deep shot to Worthy. Mahomes had a perfect pocket to step and throw, and he overshot Worthy, who had so much room that 49ers safety Malik Mustapha turned and looked at his teammates with the same question you might have had at home. How did he get so open?

• In Week 9 against Tampa Bay, Worthy adjusted his route after noticing space in the secondary, and Mahomes found him open along the sideline. Worthy, though, inexplicably caught the ball in his gut and trotted backwards out of bounds before securing it, costing him an easy score.

• A week later against Denver, Worthy properly adjusted his fly pattern to give himself more space in the field of play, and he had two steps on the last line of defense, but the Mahomes throw sailed out of bounds for yet another incompletion.

• On Sunday in Buffalo, Mahomes had Worthy on a deep pass down the seam. Mahomes had to sidestep some pressure and whipped the throw too far to his left, which sent Worthy toward the sideline. Worthy couldn’t drag his back foot for the completion. Which, by the way, it’s been a minute since we’ve seen a wide receiver have such an estranged relationship with the sideline. Still, let’s not sugarcoat it: That’s a touchdown with the right throw.

It’s easier to blame the rookie than a Hall of Fame quarterback, but three of those four misses fall squarely on Mahomes. Most NFL quarterbacks complete all of those throws, yet somehow the league’s best cannot complete hardly any of them, mired in some sort of long-throw slump.

The alarming part is that he missed in just about every way possible — pushing one throw too far right, yanking another too far left, and somehow finding a way to overthrow the man who recorded the fastest 40-yard dash in NFL Combine history.

“I feel like if I hit those shots, the offense looks completely different,” Mahomes said four days before missing Worthy in Buffalo.

Well, let’s look at exactly how different.

Those four plays — those four must-be-completed throws — came on drives in which the Chiefs didn’t end up scoring. In fact, they would total less than 10 yards combined after the misses.

So what would it look like if they had hit those shots instead?

Instead of being ranked 16th in yards, the Chiefs’ offense would be one yard per game shy of seventh — two spots higher than they were a year ago. Instead of ranking 11th in points per game, they would be sixth.

It is the literal difference between progression and regression.

For the team.

And the player.

Mahomes’ passer rating would jump from 90.2 to 100.1 with those four completions alone. He’d move to the top-five in the league in both yards and touchdowns.

It’s the difference in talking about a quarterback in the thick of the NFL’s Most Valuable Player race and wondering what’s going on with the Chiefs’ offense.

This is what’s going on with the Chiefs’ offense. Everything else is distracting from the central point. A few weeks ago, we outlined how the Chiefs have become better at figuring out a path to the end zone when the chunk plays aren’t there — how they’ve sustained extraordinarily long drives.

But now the chunk plays are there on occasion, and maybe even a more frequent occasion lately. Teams have adjusted to the Chiefs running the ball well. (KC is third in the NFL in rushing success rate.) The defenses have focused on Travis Kelce and DeAndre Hopkins underneath.

The back end of opposing defenses are showing some vulnerability, and yet the Chiefs cannot connect the world’s best quarterback and one of the NFL’s fastest wide receivers on the deep pass — even when it’s right there for them.

It’s maddening. It’s curious. It’s, well, tiring.

The Chiefs cannot afford to have this conversation every week, or we probably won’t feel the need to have it in February.

Sure, Mahomes had pressure in his face on one incompletion; he probably saw Worthy too late. Sure, there’s an inexperienced wide receiver on the other end. But these are wide-open throws, in NFL terms, and you don’t get many of those.

“We can practice it all we want, but until we start doing it in the game, there’s nothing more I can really say about it,” Mahomes said, and, yes, the frustration was as evident as that reads.

You’re not asking much to complete those four aforementioned examples, and just look at how different the production of this offense would look if they had completed them.

“You talk about seven points against a good football team,” coach Andy Reid said. “So we’ve got to make sure we take care of business on both ends there.”

Both ends.

As the Chiefs opened the season, when we were first talking about this very topic, all of the focus settled on the newcomers — Worthy and free agent pickup Hollywood Brown. Given his size, could Worthy get off the line quickly enough to pry open?

It’s shifted now.

Can the quarterback hit him when he is open?

We’ve witnessed the effect when he’s missed. And then missed again. And again and again.

That’s why it’s not nitpicking. It’s difference-making.