Very recently, Patrick Mahomes of the Kansas City Chiefs were putting up subpar numbers (at least by his standards), and although the Chiefs were winning games with regularity, they looked a little vulnerable.

But on Sunday, they defeated the Los Angeles Chargers, and Mahomes looked like his best self once again. He connected on 32 of 42 pass attempts, giving him 424 yards and four touchdown passes for the game, and it was his best performance of the season, at least so far.

Through seven games, he has thrown for 2,017 yards and 15 touchdown passes while completing 69.5 percent of his pass attempts, numbers that are more or less in line with his career averages.

Mahomes has never been known as a very mobile or dual-threat quarterback who will move the chains or get first downs with his legs. But as Doug Clawson noted, he is actually leading the NFL right now in yards, first downs and EPA on scrambles this season.

Mahomes has never had more than 400 rushing yards in a season since coming into the league in 2017. But so far this year, he has 214 rushing yards and an average of 6.5 yards per rush attempt.

Perhaps he has had to take a little more offensive initiative this season since Kansas City doesn’t have a reliable threat at wide receiver. In years past, Tyreek Hill filled that role admirably, and after he left in the spring of 2022, JuJu Smith-Schuster did the job adequately last season with 933 receiving yards.

During the Patrick Mahomes era, the team has never done lots of damage on the ground — this season, they rank just 18th in rushing yards and 20th in rushing touchdowns. But the stats Clawson pointed to are proof Mahomes can run for yardage and move the chains when absolutely necessary.

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