The Kansas City Chiefs suffered their first loss of the young season in Week 3, falling to the Indianapolis Colts in a rather lackluster performance by the elite AFC club. While that would typically be the central focus this week, more attention has been paid to an apparent on-field spat between Patrick Mahomes and his offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy.
The animated discussion took place in the final second of the first half. Kansas City was faced with a second-and-20 situation with 20 seconds on the clock before halftime and at their 36-yard-line. Instead of trying to push for more points, the Chiefs elected not to run another play and went into the break up 14-10, which was to the dismay of Mahomes who clearly wanted to push for more points. Mahomes and Bieniemy were then seen having the lively debate on the field and head coach Andy Reid even needed to separate his quarterback from the conversation.
“Here’s what I love about Pat: [he] is a competitor,” Bieniemy told reporters Thursday, via Arrowhead Pride. “You guys have heard what I’ve said in the past about him. You want him that way. That’s how you want [your quarterback]. You want to finish every drive in the end zone with a score.
“At that particular time — as a staff — we decided, ‘You know what? We’re getting the ball to start the second half off, so we just want to take a knee.’ So obviously, Pat — being the competitor that he is — wasn’t ready to hear that.”
After the game, Mahomes said as much, noting that he “wanted to go try to score” while also questioning if it was truly an altercation like is being made out to be. Bieniemy himself added to that, laughing: You guys have seen me erupt. If it had been a true eruption, I think you guys would have recognized it.”
Naturally, a young superstar quarterback like Mahomes seemingly jawing with his OC is going to garner attention. However, this doesn’t seem like it’ll have much impact on the Chiefs going forward.
“So the exchange that we had?” he asked. “Who cares? It really doesn’t matter. Because when it’s all said and done with, we’re going to talk a minute or two later — and talk about exactly what we need to do. So there is no personal issue. You just keep it moving forward.”
Kansas City will look to get back into the win column when they travel to Tampa to take on the Buccaneers in Week 4 for “Sunday Night Football.”
