Welcome to The Ringer's quarterback notebook, where I’ll cover the past week in NFL quarterbacking—from the most interesting passers, plays, and story lines to some other stuff that caught my eye when I was watching film. In this week’s notebook, we’ll be looking at the Chiefs breaking Patrick Mahomes, Jayden Daniels’s biggest statistical red flag, Baker Mayfield’s second-half regression, and more. Let’s talk quarterbacks.
The Kansas City Chiefs are breaking Patrick Mahomes.
Patrick Mahomes leads the NFL in scrambles. He’s also on pace to set a career-high scramble rate—around 9 percent of his dropbacks this season are ending with a run. We saw Mahomes’s scramble rate approach that number in one other season: the Chiefs’ Super Bowl–winning 2023 campaign, when the offense was broken for much of the year and none of his receivers could catch the damn ball. When Mahomes loses trust in the offense and the players around him, his scramble rate spikes. It’s a clear recession indicator for the Chiefs’ passing game.
Sunday night’s 20-10 loss to Houston was another scramble-heavy game for Mahomes, who was playing behind a depleted offensive line and throwing to receivers who had a severe case of the drops—and were going up against the NFL’s best defense. You can see why he felt the need to take the game into his own hands. The entire contest was one big indictment of the job Andy Reid and Brett Veach have done building around their superstar quarterback. And it was painfully apparent that the Chiefs offense was outgunned on third down, when the Texans defense knew that a pass was coming. The offensive line didn’t stand a chance against Houston’s pass rush, and the receivers struggled to find any open space against the secondary.
I’ve picked out two third-down plays that illustrate the hellacious offensive environment Mahomes is dealing with right now. This third-and-4 is from Kansas City’s second possession of the game. Reid dials up a terribly uncreative pass concept that features five quick slants across the field.
The goal was to get Travis Kelce up against linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair, which would have been a favorable matchup for the tight end a couple of years ago.
That was where Mahomes’s eyes went first, but because it’s 2025 and not 2022, Kelce couldn’t shake Al-Shaair.
So with Mahomes’s right guard getting walked back into his lap, he rushed a nearly blind throw to Rashee Rice, who was running another slant behind Kelce’s. That pass got tipped, Mahomes caught the ricochet, and he got taken down for a 10-yard loss. Reid’s play call stank, Kelce is too washed to win the matchup Kansas City wanted, and the offensive line didn’t give Mahomes enough time to get to his second read. But this is how it goes down in the box score: “P.Mahomes pass short middle to P.Mahomes to KC 31 for –10 yards (W.Anderson).” Tough break!
Here’s another third-and-medium play from later in the game that’s just as hopeless.
The Texans took away Mahomes’s first look, a quick out route by Xavier Worthy. From there, Mahomes saw Hollywood Brown run his corner route right into another defender and Rice run his over route at a leisurely pace. Meanwhile, Will Anderson was closing in on the QB.
I’m getting upset on Mahomes’s behalf: RUN, RASHEE! Mahomes eventually looked to the backside of the play, where he saw Kelce playing patty-cake with a defender. His last option was a checkdown to a covered Kareem Hunt in the flat, so he tried to scramble and ran right into a sack. I mean, look at this picture.
There was just nothing there for Mahomes. And so he ran. Not because he wanted to, but because this lousy offense forced him to. Mahomes took a beating against the Texans, and all those hits caught up with him late in the game. I don’t want to excuse this awful throw that led to the worst of Mahomes’s three interceptions of the night, but when have you ever seen him leave a throw short like this?
Kansas City is still clinging on to its fading playoff hopes—The Athletic’s prediction model gives the team a 12 percent chance of making the postseason—but it might be in the best interest of the Chiefs and their quarterback for their mathematical elimination to hit sooner rather than later. It could be the only way to protect Mahomes and ensure he gets to the 2026 offseason relatively healthy.
Jayden Daniels is breaking himself.
Let’s stick with the theme of quarterbacks who are scrambling too often. Of all of the concerning statistics attached to Daniels’s sophomore slump—and, yes, he’s officially in that territory at this point—this one might be the most worrisome: Daniels’s scrambling rate is up by 3 percentage points over last season. That’s a number Washington wanted to bring down after Daniels scrambled on nearly 13 percent of his dropbacks as a rookie. His scramble rate is up to 15.7 percent in 2025.
Now, if Daniels were doing a better job of protecting himself while running, this would be less of an issue. While the knock that took him out of the Vikings game on Sunday didn’t come on a scramble, he has been exposing himself to a lot of needless hits. According to Pro Football Focus, Daniels has slid just four times on 41 scrambles. I was able to fit all four of them into a 30-second video:
Daniels is protecting himself on one out of every 10 scrambles. Compare that to the other players who are in the top five of the league in total scrambles:
How Often the Top Scramblers Slide (PFF)
Josh Allen is the only quarterback on that list who approaches Daniels’s levels of open-field recklessness, and he’s built like a marble statue. Allen can handle that type of punishment (for now). Daniels, very clearly, cannot.
I’m not necessarily advocating that Daniels take fewer trips outside the pocket, but I would like to see the QB throw more often when he does escape. Only 39 percent of his out-of-pocket dropbacks have ended in a pass attempt this season, per TruMedia. That’s easily the lowest mark in the league, and only Justin Fields (45 percent) and Drake Maye (49 percent) are within 10 percentage points of him. The number was higher for Daniels last season, at 42 percent, so this issue seems to be getting worse.
Washington’s offensive line did a terrible job of protecting Daniels on Sunday against Minnesota, so he was on the move plenty, and I thought that there were a few instances when he could have gotten a pass rather than scrambling and taking a hit.
The first play in that cut-up really stands out. Daniels passes up on three potential throws, and while he does pick up the first down with his short scramble, he has to dive headfirst into a tackle to get the job done. It’s just more needless contact for a player who seeks it out way too often and is already having trouble staying healthy.
Baker Mayfield has quietly been really bad over the past two months.
Mayfield’s astroturfed MVP campaign, which had been built entirely on witching-hour heroics and the most wild interception luck in NFL history, is officially dead after he stank it up on Sunday in a home loss to the bad Saints team. That L capped off a horrendous two-month stretch for the QB, who over the season now ranks 17th in EPA per dropback, 24th in net yards per attempt, and 29th in success rate. The numbers get even worse if you focus just on his last two months of play. Here’s the list of quarterbacks with lower EPA averages and success rates since Week 4, via TruMedia.
Mayfield does have plenty of built-in excuses for this drop-off in play. His offensive line and receiving corps have been depleted throughout the season. He’s also playing through an injury after he hurt his shoulder a few weeks back. But Mayfield is extremely lucky that his numbers aren’t even worse. I wasn’t exaggerating the level of interception luck he’s enjoyed this season. Per Pro Football Focus, he’s thrown 16 passes that have been charted as “turnover worthy.” Only one of them has been intercepted. For comparison, Trevor Lawrence has seen seven of his 17 turnover-worthy passes turn into picks. Mahomes has seen seven of his 15 turnover-worthy attempts picked off. I’m willing to believe that this is the result of a Faustian pact Mayfield made in the offseason.
If this rut continues for Mayfield, it will be interesting to see how the team handles any contract negotiations this offseason, the last before his current deal expires. Per Spotrac, Mayfield’s cap hit jumps to more than $51 million in 2026 after the team restructured his deal last offseason. Two months ago, that looked like it could be the starting point for Mayfield’s contract demands. Since his play has regressed, though, the Bucs may think twice about giving a 30-year-old with a track record of injuries and streaky play a top-of-market deal a year earlier than they have to. I doubt that Mayfield would be happy taking a pay cut after what he’s provided Tampa Bay these past few seasons. We could be headed for an awkward offseason. Luckily, Mayfield isn’t one to hold a grudge.
C.J. Stroud has quietly been really good over the past two months.
Stroud’s season is heading in the opposite direction of Mayfield’s. Since Week 4, only five quarterbacks have ranked ahead of him in EPA per dropback: Drake Maye, Jordan Love, Matthew Stafford, Dak Prescott, and Josh Allen. So all of the league’s top MVP candidates. Stroud lags behind those guys in other efficiency metrics like success rate and yards per dropback, though. And a lot of his EPA production has come in high-leverage situations, which juices the potential EPA gains. Still, over the past two months, Stroud has trailed only Maye and Love in “passing down” EPA, per TruMedia.
That tracks with what we saw out of Stroud in Sunday night’s win in Kansas City. He had some ugly moments in the second half but also came up with a handful of clutch third-down conversions that helped Houston pick up the biggest win of its season to date. Accuracy is still a long-term concern for Stroud, but he has shown growth in two key areas this season: (1) He’s creating more out of structure, which was a major factor in the Chiefs win, and (2) he’s starting to get more comfortable with his new pre-snap responsibilities in Nick Caley’s offense. The Texans offensive line still struggles with picking up blitzes and other pass rush games, but Stroud is finding answers quicker than ever before. It’s clear that he now has a better idea of where his protection is most vulnerable and what solutions he should turn to when things break down. His lone touchdown pass against Kansas City was just one example of that across the night.
Stroud deftly slipped past the free rusher and calmly dumped the ball off to the back for a walk-in touchdown. It looks like a simple play, but it’s not one Stroud would have made so seamlessly a year ago—or even during his remarkable rookie season.
Stroud still hasn’t quite reached the efficiency level of that 2023 campaign, but he has improved in some key metrics this season. His scramble rate (and success rate on those plays) is up, while his average time to throw and his pressure-to-sack rate are both down. Stroud still isn’t receiving much support from Houston’s offense on early downs, but a more seamless process and quicker reactions have turned him into one of the league’s best performers in pure pass situations.
I’m still not buying what Bo Nix is selling.
While the above may be true, I am very much buying what Sean Payton has to offer. The Broncos coach should be getting more Coach of the Year buzz after what he’s done over the past month, extracting top-10 efficiency numbers from his second-year quarterback. Nix has thrown only two touchdowns in the past four weeks, but he’s fourth in total EPA and seventh in success rate, per TruMedia. Nix is also coming off two of his better performances of the season. In Sunday’s win over the Raiders, he averaged 0.23 EPA per dropback and had a success rate of 51.2 percent. Those numbers could have been even better, but Nix left a lot of meat on the bone. Let’s take a look at a handful of examples.
On this first-and-10 play, Nix could have thrown to either receiver running seam routes—both popped open—but he panicked and ran into a sack instead.
That concept, known as “Hoss” in most systems, is a rather basic one, but Nix botched the read.
This is a “four verticals” concept, but the read is similar—with two seam routes stressing the single-high safety in the middle of the field.
The safety veered off to the left, leaving tight end Adam Trautman wide open on the right. Nix rushed through the read and threw to a covered checkdown option for no gain.
Here I thought that Nix could have waited for the deep in-breaking route on the “dagger” concept, but he was quick to throw another checkdown.
Now, Nix had no idea that the cornerback was going to fall in the play above, leaving Courtland Sutton open in the middle of the field, but it was his best receiver running an in-breaker against a smaller corner with outside leverage. That’s a throw most NFL starters can and should make with anticipation.
Later in the game, Payton set up a similar read for Nix, with a clear-out route and a deep in-breaker against outside leverage. His quarterback passed up on the deeper throw for another low-value target underneath.
These are basic concepts that can be found in high school playbooks, and we have multiple examples of Nix failing to read them out with proper timing. That was one of the major knocks against the 2024 first-round pick in college. The other was his case of the pocket zoomies, and while that’s improved slightly, Nix is still liable to run himself into pressure. On his final dropback against the Raiders, he ran directly into his left guard’s ass for a sack.
I think that the disconnect between Bo-lievers and non-Bo-lievers lies in how Nix’s skill set has been pitched. Because of his connection with Payton, he’s drawn some Drew Brees comps. But he plays nothing like Brees, who was a savant in the pocket and read the field as well as any quarterback ever. Nix is more of a wild card who doesn’t always follow the right process but makes up for it with underrated physical tools. If you sell him as a Temu Josh Allen, I can get on board with that. This Brees cosplay isn’t believable, though.
While I’m still not buying Nix as a franchise quarterback, I won’t deny that there has been some notable improvement to his game. He’s been more accurate and a little more creative in the pocket this season. Just watch this no-look pass he dropped on the Raiders.
But let’s not overstate how much improvement we’ve seen—especially in the key areas that will ultimately determine his ceiling. The numbers may not show the meaningful gaps that still exist in his skill set, but the film doesn’t lie.
The best throw I saw this week.
Josh Allen’s inexplicable fourth-down completion may have been a better throw, but the novelty of Jalen Hurts ripping an anticipatory pass into an intermediate zone window puts it over the top for me. This is the throw that Hurts skeptics like me have been begging him to make since pretty much the start of his career. It’s the second week in a row Hurts has put one of these on film.
The worst throw I saw this week.
I still don’t know how Hurts didn’t see the big blue monster in the middle of the field.
