Jacksonville Jaguars 31, Kansas City Chiefs 28
PATRICK MAHOMES: Yeah, I mean, obviously it sucks. You let a game slip away. Credit to them. They played hard. They played hard the entire game and they got a lot of good football players and they closed it out there at the end and so it still sucks when you get a lead like that and you're not able to hold it for the rest of the game.
Q. What did you see on the interception return as you look back at it?
PATRICK MAHOMES: Yeah, honestly they got me with the coverage they played. They played zero kind of inside that ten-yard area in previous games and they hadn't shown the poppers with the linebackers popping out when they're protected. I think back to a game against Cincinnati earlier in the year that they had Ja'Marr chase on a slant route and so I saw the look. I checked to the play with the in-outs, having three ins knowing that they were going to try to pass off the guys and JuJu was going to pop wide open and he did but credit to... they schemed themselves and they kind of looked over what they could do better and they popped right underneath where I was throwing the ball. Great call by them defensively and obviously a great play by 0 getting the pick and then I got to find a way to tackle him or slow him down after he gets the interception.
Q. If that's the biggest mistake, Patrick, just how much of it is going to nag you guys when you look back at the amount of penalties you have that stopped your momentum at times?
PATRICK MAHOMES: Yeah, it kind of just talks about our whole entire season. I feel like we have the guys and we've executed at certain points in the game and looked really good and then we kind of crush ourselves with penalties and mistakes and interceptions and fumbles or whatever that is. It's just we've kind of done that to ourselves all year long. It's been one guy here or there and in this league, it's so close that those change games. We got to be better. We've lost too many games already. We got to find a way to be better as a team and come together and play better throughout the rest of the season.
Q. (Inaudible).
PATRICK MAHOMES: I thought they did a great job. Offensively we did a great job in certain parts of the game. When we weren't hurting ourselves and getting penalties or throwing interceptions or anything like that. We moved the ball. We were able to move the ball down the field quickly so I thought the offensive line did a great job. When they're playing like that, it's easy for me to survey the field and I was hitting guys who were second, third, fourth reads in the progression so if they keep doing that, we'll keep putting up points, we just got to find a way to win game there is at the end.
Q. (Inaudible).
PATRICK MAHOMES: I feel like we'll continue to get better and better. I thought we did a lot of great things in the game today. We moved the ball, we scored in the red zone and did what we wanted to there. We just hurt ourselves with penalties. As we continue to clean that stuff up, we'll continue to put more and more points on the board.
We have another great challenge this next week. Playing to lions. That's a great football team who scores a lot of points themselves and plays with a lot of pride so it'll be super important for us to go in with the right mindset knowing it's going to be a great challenge.
Q. You guys have won a lot of close games in the past, coming down to 13 seconds. How do you guys get back to that?
PATRICK MAHOMES: I think it's confidence more than anything. We were able to get that drive there at the end and get the touchdown on the go ahead and I thought defensively they did a lot of good things. It was two place. It was the big play down the sideline and the pass interference in the end zone, obviously, and then he trips and runs in. The pass interference in the end zone sets that up. They're right there and so there's two third downs, third-and-longs. It's just about closing it out there for us, we got to be better at not getting in that situation in general offensively and making that mistake early in the third quarter.
It's just little things here and there but that's the difference in the game.
Q. I know this is not the result you wanted, but on a per-play basis, offensively you guys were better than you have been all year. Did it feel that way?
PATRICK MAHOMES: Yeah, other than the interception and a couple penalties I thought we did a great job offensively today. That's a good defense and so we'll continue to build on that. We'll continue to get better at cleaning up the penalties and cleaning up the mistakes and the interception and turnovers and stuff like that, but I feel like we're going in the right direction offensively.
Now it's just about finding ways to win. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter how you play if you're not finding ways to win football games, make winning plays. So we got to be better at that.
Q. (Inaudible).
PATRICK MAHOMES: Yeah, for sure. You see the play actions and you see the bootlegs that we were able to run. That comes off the run game and I think that comes with the chemistry the O-line is building and the chemistry that they're building with the running backs as well. That's stuff that will continue to get better and better over time and we'll just continue to work off that as well and try to find ways to make the offense even better.
Q. (Inaudible).
PATRICK MAHOMES: Which one are you talking about?
Q. (Inaudible).
PATRICK MAHOMES: They played good coverage and that guy got a hand on me and just tried to stay up. There's always a little bit of panic when you're down with your head down towards the ground. Just playing football, you got to be a competitor. It's not about being a quarterback at the end of games like that. It's about going like that and competing and I was trying to do that.
Q. That touchdown run, was that two option or how did that...
PATRICK MAHOMES: Yeah, it was read option and there was a couple options for me to throw the ball as well. How they played their coverage, it turned out like man and so those guys followed the routes that we were running and obvious guys followed the running backs and there was no one left for me so it kind of made it easy for me to get into the end zone. But being able to have that ability, it will help the run game in the long run.
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