Double-digit deficits are barely a speed bump for Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs

AP Pro Football Writer

Inside the Numbers dives into NFL statistics, streaks and trends each week. For more Inside the Numbers, head here.

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Falling behind by a double-digit deficit is typically a death knell for most NFL teams.

For Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs, that’s the situation that makes them thrive.

Mahomes and the Chiefs rallied from 14-3 down to beat the Denver Broncos 16-14 on Sunday to improve to 9-0 with their second comeback from at least 10 points down this season after also doing it in Week 4 against the Chargers.

Kansas City improved to 19-14 with Mahomes at quarterback after falling behind by double digits in the regular season or playoffs for a staggering .576 win percentage in those typically dire situations, compared with the .139 mark in NFL history and the .160 mark since Mahomes entered the NFL in 2017.

No quarterback other than Mahomes who has faced at least 20 double-digit deficits has won even 40% of those games, with Tom Brady (.378) and Joe Montana at (.370) coming next on the list.

The Chiefs are more likely to win a game after falling behind by at least 10 points with Mahomes at quarterback than teams are in all games with several notable quarterbacks, including Hall of Famers Dan Fouts (.503), Joe Namath (.500) and Warren Moon (.493); former MVP Matt Ryan (.527) and two-time Super Bowl MVP Eli Manning (.508).

Mahomes needed some help with a blocked field goal to seal Kansas City’s 15th straight win in the regular season and playoffs, which is the longest streak in the NFL since Green Bay won 19 in a row in 2010-11.

Kansas City is the fifth defending Super Bowl champion to start the following season 9-0 or better. With a win this week at Buffalo, the Chiefs’ 10-0 start will trail only the 2011 Packers (13-0) and the 1998 Broncos (13-0) for the most consecutive wins to begin a season for a defending champion.

New Yuck, New Yuck

The New York Jets and Giants both played — and lost — on Sunday, which shouldn’t come as a big surprise based on how the Big Apple’s teams have fared recently.

That marked the fourth time in five weeks that the two teams that are the worst in the NFL over the last eight seasons both lost. The Jets lead the NFL with 86 losses since the start of the 2017 — one more than their MetLife Stadium co-tenants, the Giants, have in that span.

There have been 116 weeks since the start of the 2017 season when the Jets and Giants both played — excluding two head-to-head matchups — with both teams losing in 59 of those weeks compared with just 12 weeks where they went 2-0.

There are plenty of reasons for the lack of success for both teams, but the lack of development for the Giants’ 2019 first-round draft pick, quarterback Daniel Jones, and the lack of production from Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers are high on the list.

The 40-year-old Rodgers looks little like the QB who won back-to-back MVPs in Green Bay in 2020-21. After missing almost all of his first season in New York with a torn Achilles tendon, Rodgers has been unable to elevate the Jets’ offense this season.

New York has been held without an offensive touchdown twice in Rodgers’ last seven starts — matching the total he had in 239 regular-season and playoff starts in Green Bay when he played at least a half.

Rodgers has gone 33 straight starts in the regular season and playoffs without throwing for at least 300 yards in any game — tied for the third-longest streak in the last 20 years, trailing David Garrard’s 39 straight in 2005-08 and Alex Smith’s 35 from 2005-09.

Jones has been even worse, failing to throw a single TD pass in six of his 10 games this season. He joined Mike Glennon (2021) as the only Giants QBs in the last 20 seasons to have multiple games with at least two interceptions, no touchdown passes and fewer than 200 yards passing.

Chasing history

Ja’Marr Chase put up a season of production for some players in just two games against the Baltimore Ravens.

Chase followed up his 10 catches for 193 yards and two TDs in the first meeting between Cincinnati and Baltimore with 11 catches for 264 yards and three scores in a 35-34 loss on Thursday night.

Chase’s 457 yards receiving are the most for a player in one season against a single opponent, topping Art Powell’s 428 for the Raiders against Houston in 1963. Chase is the first player in NFL history with two career games with at least 250 yards receiving and two TDs, having also done it against Kansas City in Week 17 of the 2021 season.

Despite Chase’s historic production, the Bengals lost both games because they couldn’t stop Lamar Jackson, who had eight TD passes in the two games.

In all, the teams combined for 148 points, 1,541 yards passing and 17 TD passes in the two meetings. That’s tied for the most TD passes thrown in a season series between two teams with Washington and the New York Giants in 1962, and the third most yards passing, trailing San Francisco-Atlanta in 1990 (1,600) and Detroit-Green Bay in 2011 (1,583).

Happy Harbaugh

Jim Harbaugh’s history of being a turnaround artist as a coach has carried over to the Los Angeles Chargers.

The Chargers already surpassed last season’s win total after beating Tennessee 27-17 on Sunday to improve to 6-3 and give Harbaugh his 50th career regular-season win.

Harbaugh reached the mark in his 73rd game as a head coach in the NFL. Only six coaches since the merger got there faster, according to Sportradar, including his older brother, John, who got his 50th win in his 72nd game as coach in Baltimore. The fastest coach to 50 wins in the Super Bowl era was George Seifert, who took over the Super Bowl champion 49ers in 1989 and won 50 of his first 62 games.

Harbaugh led San Francisco to a seven-game improvement in his first season there in 2011 and had similar success in college. Stanford improved by three wins in his first season and Michigan made a five-win jump in his first year there.

The Chargers have done it largely behind a defense that became the ninth team in the Super Bowl era to allow 20 points or fewer in each of the first nine games of a season. They are just the fourth team to do that since 1980, joining the 2013 Chiefs, the 1999 Jaguars and the 1990 Super Bowl champion Giants.

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