Saints WR Emmanuel Sanders describes torment of facing Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes
Over the past three seasons, we’ve seen many moments where Kansas City Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes makes an otherworldly play. Defenders throw their arms up in frustration because they do everything right only to have Mahomes make his signature magic happen. For offensive players on the sideline, there’s even more agony when facing Mahomes.
New Orleans Saints WR Emmanuel Sanders has been on the sidelines watching helplessly three times during his career, twice with the Denver Broncos in 2018 and once with the San Francisco 49ers during Super Bowl LIV. On Wednesday, he described to Saints reporters the torment of facing Mahomes.
“I mean, he’s a special player,” Sanders explained. “Every time you think you’ve got him, you really don’t have him and I’ve been a part of like three games like that where I’m like, yeah, we got him. And then next thing you know, he just does some spectacular stuff you’ve never seen.”
Sanders pointed to two specific examples, both among Mahomes’ most memorable plays. The left-handed pass on “Monday Night Football” in 2018 and 2-3 Jet Chip Wasp from Super Bowl LIV.
“Like I think about the Denver game, when we had him,” Sanders continued. “He was just a young guy like he’s rolling out to the left, he’s got the ball in his right hand and he takes the ball and throws the ball in his left hand to Tyreek Hill on a big third down and that conversion pretty much beat us. Then last year in the Super Bowl we got him and he just drops a dime to Tyreek hill on third and 15. So he’s one of the players that you know going in it’s going to take all four quarters to beat him because at any moment he can explode on the scene, he could get the blinking like on Madden and then next thing like, it’s out of control so you’ve definitely got to be in a game with him for four straight quarters.”
Entering Week 15, sticking with the Chiefs through four quarters seems to be the mantra of New Orleans. While Mahomes is coming off perhaps his worst performance of the season against the Miami Dolphins in Week 14, that won’t phase Sanders or the Saints. They know that Kansas City has loads of playmakers on both sides of the ball to pick up the slack if Mahomes isn’t at the top of his game.
“I think just when you speak of the Chiefs, they’ve just got a legendary team right now,” Sanders said. “From Travis Kelce, a tight end, leading the league in yards from Tyreek Hill to Patrick Mahomes to the Honey Badger (Tyrann Mathieu). They have just got players upon players over there, and they play well, and they play confident, and then they’ve got Andy Reid who’s a great coach in my opinion as well. And so every week, you know that they’re going to come ready to play.”
Sanders also knows that even if Mahomes isn’t at the top of his game, you can’t hold him and the Chiefs down for long. He has first-hand accounts of what failing to play four full quarters of football against the Chiefs looks like. He’s determined to not witness his latest team repeat those mistakes and relive past torment at the hands of Mahomes and Kansas City.
“They’re a team that you’ve got to play all four quarters, you cannot let off the gas with these guys,” Sanders said. “Because at any moment Tyreek Hill can go 80 yards at any moment. Travis Kelce and Patrick Mahomes could find their groove at any moment. The Honey Badger could change the dynamic of the game and so we have got to be prepared to play four quarters of football no matter what the results are. I do not care if we’re winning by 20, 30. We’ve still got to go at it because we have seen them in the playoffs versus the Texans. The Texans had them, right? The year they won the Super Bowl the Texans had them and next thing you know they came back. So it’s going to be a game that we’ve got to play all four quarters.”
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First injury report for Chiefs vs. Saints, Week 15
