Mahomes throws five touchdown passes, Falcons lose 35-13 and fall to 3-7

The Falcons lost 35-13 to Kansas City at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Sunday, and the shape of it was set before the building had warmed up. Atlanta ran twelve plays in the first quarter and gained seven yards. It did not pick up a first down on any of its first four possessions. Kansas City needed ten plays and eighty yards to take a lead it never gave back. Atlanta's win probability peaked at 23.3 percent on the opening kickoff.

The turning point came with 6:58 left in the third quarter. Trailing 14-3, Atlanta faced fourth and four at the fifty after Bijan Robinson was stopped for a one-yard loss on third and three. Michael Penix Jr. threw short middle to Kyle Pitts Sr. and missed. Kansas City took the ball at midfield and needed four plays and 1:52: two Emmett Johnson runs, a six-yard Patrick Mahomes scramble on third and five, then a thirty-nine yard touchdown throw to Cyrus Allen. It was 21-3, and Atlanta's chance of winning had gone from 5.4 percent to 2.0.

The part that will sit badly is who did it. Mahomes finished 22 of 35 for 348 yards and five touchdown passes with no interceptions. He did it without Kenneth Walker III, ruled out Saturday, with Travis Kelce limited after aggravating an ankle injury on the opening drive, and without right guard Trey Smith, who left in the first half with a concussion. Kansas City averaged 7.3 yards a play and went three for three in the red zone with a running back making his first career start.

Offense

The plan was to lean on Robinson and throw off the looks that come with him, and for a quarter it produced nothing. Atlanta finished with 370 yards on sixty-six plays, 5.6 a snap, which is not a disaster on its own. The problem is when the yards arrived. Five of Atlanta's six plays of twenty yards or more came after halftime, four of them in the fourth quarter, by which point Kansas City led by twenty-five and was happy to let receivers catch the ball in front of them.

Penix went 23 of 43 for 286 yards, no touchdowns and one interception, with a 64.7 passer rating. He was sacked three times. Over the last three weeks he has thrown one touchdown and six interceptions.

Third down: five of sixteen. Fourth down: none of two. Red zone: one touchdown in five trips. That last number explains thirteen points at home. The drive after Robinson's score reached the Kansas City sixteen, lost ground on three straight plays and ended with Jake Moody kicking a thirty-eight yarder on fourth and fourteen.

Efficiency was not the run game's problem. Robinson carried sixteen times for seventy-one yards, 4.4 a carry, and scored from three yards out. Atlanta averaged 5.0 a rush and ran it twenty times. For the league's leading rusher, on a day the passing game produced no touchdowns, twenty carries is a number worth arguing about.

Drake London was the offense. Six catches, 109 yards on twelve targets, including a thirty-eight yarder at the end of the first half and a twenty-four yard catch that opened the only drive that looked like a professional operation. He was evaluated for a concussion in the closing minutes and did not return. Jahan Dotson had three for sixty-three, Pitts four for fifty, and Robinson caught four passes for six yards, which tells you how often the first read was gone.

Defense

One sack, split between Gervon Dexter Sr. and Brandon Dorlus. No takeaways. Four hundred sixty-one yards allowed at 7.3 a play and 9.4 a pass attempt, three red zone trips and three touchdowns.

The unit was not idle. Kansas City punted seven times, converted four of thirteen third downs and was stopped on fourth and four at the Atlanta thirty-eight with 3:39 to go. Johnson was held to 101 yards on twenty-two carries, which is survivable.

The failure was narrow and it is the same one as last week. Seven of Mahomes' twenty-two completions went for twenty yards or more. Two were touchdowns, the thirty-nine yarder to Allen and a forty-three yard throw to Andrew Armstrong on third and one. A fifty-yard completion to Rashee Rice in the fourth quarter put the ball on the Atlanta twenty-five and became a touchdown four plays later, helped by a roughing the passer penalty on Dorlus that wiped out a stop at the twenty-one and handed Kansas City first and ten at the eleven.

DeMarcco Hellams held up. Eleven tackles, seven solo, in his first start at safety after Jessie Bates III was traded. A.J. Terrell Jr. had six tackles and knocked the ball out of Johnson's hands on an eighteen-yard run, though it bounced out of bounds. Harold Perkins Jr. had seven tackles and a tackle for loss. The pass rush lost its matchup badly. Za'Darius Smith registered two quarterback hits and no sack, James Pearce Jr. one tackle. Mahomes was put on the ground once all afternoon, and a quarterback with that much time finds the second and third reads every week.

Special teams

The best unit on the field, and it was not close. Jake Bailey punted seven times for a 52.0 average and dropped three inside the twenty. Khalil Herbert returned six kickoffs for 168 yards, 28.0 a return. Olamide Zaccheaus returned five punts for eighty-one yards. Moody, signed off Baltimore's practice squad on Wednesday after Nick Folk was released, made both field goals and his extra point. And after Robinson's touchdown cut it to 28-10, Atlanta recovered its own onside kick, Chris Blair collecting it at the fifty, the only successful onside recovery in the league this season.

The cost sits on the same ledger. With eighteen seconds left in the half, Harrison Butker's forty-one yard field goal went through and was wiped out by a defensive offside on Mike Ford Jr. Kansas City declined the three points, took first and ten at the eighteen and threw a touchdown to Josh Downs on the next snap. Four points given away before the ball was kicked, in a game where four points changed nothing and the habit means something.

Coaching

The team was not ready to play. Four possessions, no first downs, seven yards, at home, against an opponent missing its leading rusher and half its tight end room. That is the first line on the staff's ledger.

The in-game decisions were mostly sound. Going for it on fourth and four at the fifty while down 14-3 was right, and the incompletion was the problem rather than the choice. Going for it on fourth and ten at the Kansas City nineteen with 2:39 left and down 28-13 was also right, and Penix's throw for Blair in the end zone was intercepted by Nohl Williams. Atlanta's timeout at 0:28 before Butker's attempt was harder to justify, and Ford's offside turned a stopped clock into seven points instead of three.

The halftime adjustment is where the search comes up empty. Atlanta's first three possessions after the break produced a punt, a failed fourth down and another punt, forty-six yards in all. The no-huddle tempo that moved the offense seventy-three yards in 1:43, and then thirty more for a field goal, arrived at 28-3. Whether it would have worked at 7-0 cannot be known. It is a fair question for the people who decide when to use it.

What it means

Atlanta is 3-7 and 1-5 at home, with three straight losses and five in its last six. The point totals in those defeats read zero against Tampa Bay, seventeen at Cincinnati, thirteen on Sunday. Thirty points in three games. Over the same stretch Penix has one touchdown pass and six interceptions, and the drives that reach scoring range keep ending in field goals or turnovers. That is not a bad afternoon. It is three weeks of the same two problems, an offense that cannot finish and a pass defense that gives up explosive plays in bunches.

The roster says something too. Bates and center Ryan Neuzil were traded before the deadline, Corey Levin started at center and Hellams at safety, and the team on the field Sunday was assembled by a front office that had already drawn its own conclusion about this season. With seven losses in ten games, the Falcons are not waiting on one break.

What is next

The bye is next, the most useful thing left on the schedule. Atlanta is off in Week 11, then travels to Minnesota on November 29.

The question to answer by then is whether this offense can score once it gets close. Not whether it can move the ball: 286 yards from the quarterback and 370 as a team say it can. It is the last twenty yards, where Atlanta went one for five on Sunday and has produced one passing touchdown in three weeks. The rest of the season follows from that answer.