During a preseason game earlier this month, Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes stunned fans with a wild behind-the-back pass to tight end Travis Kelce. But as it turns out, it wasn’t just for fun; it happened because Travis Kelce made a mistake.
Patrick Mahomes revealed after the game that he threw the ball behind his back “out of spite” after Travis Kelce ran his route incorrectly.
“I didn’t do it to look cool,” Mahomes said according to Nate Taylor of The Athletic. “I literally did it as I was, like, pissed. I was like, ‘Why didn’t you run that route like that?’ It just worked out.”
During the most recent episode of his New Heights podcast, Kelce admitted the mistake.
“I motioned over and I’m looking at Pat while I’m motioning over like, ‘What did you say?’” Kelce recalled.
“Because here’s the thing, when you’re in preseason you don’t get a week to prepare for the game plan going into a preseason game. It’s just you have the entire 300, 400 plays that you put in and installed in training camp, and then they take a few of them and put them in the game plan. So you’ve got to really go over your game plan.
“I wasn’t in tune with the game plan and Pat Mahomes, he had something on the back of his head when I walked across the line of scrimmage and I was like, ‘What did you say?’ I didn’t know what I was doing, so he was gonna have to make something shake.”
Obviously, Kelce didn’t do what he was supposed to do, but Mahomes made it. work anyway.
“And that’s why we love playing with Pat Mahomes ladies and gentlemen, because even when you [mess] up, he makes you right,” Kelce said.
While the play certainly looked cool, Mahomes would obviously prefer if Kelce would simply run the route correctly during the regular season.
