Someone better call Sherlock Holmes because “The Case of the Missing Dropped Passes” needs to be investigated before Super Bowl LVIII.
The Chiefs led the NFL with 44 dropped passes during the regular season — a weakness so glaring that it seemed the wide receiver corps would prevent head coach Andy Reid, quarterback Patrick Mahomes and tight end Travis Kelce from making their annual deep playoff run.
And then the playoffs started and that same cast of Rashee Rice, Marquez Valdes-Scantling, Justin Watson, Richie James and Mecole Hardman suddenly is playing like their gloves were made at the Elmer’s glue factory.
“Truly, that’s one of the biggest things that was a concern for any Chiefs fan all year,” NFL on CBS analyst Tony Romo told The Post, “because usually what happens in the regular season does come back to haunt you in the playoffs. Somehow, this Chiefs team has been able to change the narrative and also be able to produce on the field.”
The poster boy for the regular-season failures is now the face of a turnaround.
Valdes-Scantling dropped a would-be go-ahead 53-yard touchdown late in a loss to the Eagles, a third-down possible catch-and-run touchdown against the Bengals and a catchable ball against the Chargers.
Flash forward to the playoffs, however, and there he is making 30-plus-yard catches on both second-half touchdown drives against the Bills and a backwards-falling 33-yard grab to convert third-and-9 and close out the Ravens in the AFC Championship Game.
“This year, he had a couple drops in big situations, didn’t hang his head, didn’t lose confidence, kept battling, working with Pat,” Reid said. “He kept going, figuring that it would turn around. Here he comes up these last two games [with] huge catches. Very similar to what he did last year in a couple of games. I’m happy for him most of all that he was able to recover, or whatever you want to say, from what was going on earlier.”
Reid is “proud” of Valdes-Scantling, who earned some equity during last year’s Super Bowl run but had “people coming down on him everywhere” in the last couple of months.
“He understands that you can go into a slump,” Reid said. “Sometimes that ball looks big, sometimes it looks small — and he worked through that.”
Since the fictional Holmes is unavailable, Romo suspects there is more to the reversal of fortune among the receivers than just hard work and luck evening out. For example, “championship DNA” and the kind of smart coaching that came up during his conversation earlier this week with Broncos head coach Sean Payton.
“When you look at it closely, these guys know how to play in big games, but I think the biggest reason when I study it is that they’ve simplified the offense,” said Romo, who described the Chiefs’ system as “next-level” with multiple options for each receiver based on a variety of factors.
“I said [to Payton], ‘You know what’s funny? The better [your team] gets at the quarterback position as a head coach, the more you go to the next level of trying to get the play to be perfect.’ You don’t realize sometimes that these young receivers are still in Algebra when you are doing Calculus. I think they just went back to Algebra and made the game simple for their receivers.”
The Chiefs’ receiving corps next Sunday barely will resemble the group from Super Bowl LVII. Fourth-quarter touchdown scorers Skyy Moore and Kadarius Toney haven’t played during the playoffs due to injury and the leading receiver in that game with seven catches, JuJu Smith-Schuster, played for the Patriots this season.
“If you watch the receivers every single day, they’re catching on the side when the defense is up, they’re catching after practice, they’re catching before practice,” Mahomes said. “I remember I was walking to lunch one day and Skyy was out there catching by himself. Those guys have that mindset that they’re going to continue to get better.”
The biggest gainer over the course of the season is the rookie Rice, who has 63 catches for 741 yards and four touchdowns over his last nine games, including the eight straight without a drop. He was Mahomes’ first look on the victory-clinching throw that ultimately went to Valdes-Scantling against the Ravens.
What can be expected from Rice in the Super Bowl?
“Explosive plays,” Rice said. “More explosive plays.”
Yes, the Chiefs’ receivers have their confidence back.