Chiefs cloning Patriots' Tom Brady problem with Patrick Mahomes, Craig Carton claims - "They made a mistake"
The Kansas City Chiefs learned a valuable lesson last year: Patrick Mahomes can do it almost by himself. The Chiefs traded Tyreek Hill, at the time widely considered the best wide receiver in the NFL, to the Miami Dolphins and replaced him with JuJu Smith-Schuster, who is decidedly not.
They didn't skip a beat, with Mahomes dominating en route to an MVP and a Super Bowl win. Craig Carton believes they learned the wrong thing. This is how the Tom Brady New England Patriots often operated, and it cost them eventually.
Carton said:
"I think they make a tactical mistake doing things the way New England did it, where they just trust the quarterback. It don't matter who we put around him because they never acquire a major name. They got Kelce, they got Mahomes. When you look at the talent on offense for them, it's easy to say, Oh, they can win another Super Bowl."
The New England Patriots often funded their defense and trusted Brady to make things work with whoever was on offense. That's sort of what the Chiefs did last year and it worked, but Carton doesn't believe it's sustainable:
"They got Patrick Mahomes, who is the other star on offense. But man, that AFC is so loaded, so you discounting Philly and San Fran in the NFC and you're expecting Mahomes to be Superman too often you're a little too often."
Mahomes often had to do things himself. As great as Travis Kelce is, he's only one of at least four passing options. He gets open regardless, but most teams need more than that to succeed.
Can Patrick Mahomes do it all on his own?
It may not be a sustainable way to win championships, but there's no reason to believe Patrick Mahomes can't have success with this method. He won the MVP fairly easily with Travis Kelce, JuJu Smith-Schuster, Mecole Hardman and Kadarius Toney.
That's something he can probably do again and again. Whether it's enough to win the Super Bowl, as it barely was last year, remains to be seen. Craig Carton, for what it's worth, doesn't believe so.