The talent gap between Patrick Mahomes and Tua Tagovailoa was more like a chasm Saturday night.
Mahomes greatly outplayed Tagovailoa in the wild card round between the Chiefs and Dolphins as Kansas City dropped Miami 26-7 in arctic conditions at Arrowhead Stadium.
No reasonable person would suggest Tagovailoa is at the same level as Mahomes, but it was almost staggering the difference between the two quarterbacks. Mahomes finished his night 23-for-41 in the air for 262 yards with a touchdown. Tagovailoa was 20-for-39 for 199 yards with a touchdown and interception.
Tagovailoa has made great strides this season and deserved to be in MVP discussions throughout the year. But when it mattered most, Tagovailoa didn't look like an MVP-level player.
Of course, the numbers can't be looked at in a vacuum. Mahomes had more time to throw much of the night. Mike McDaniel's galaxy-brained moves sometimes hung Tagovailoa out to dry -- like in the second quarter when the running game was beginning to find a groove, only for McDaniel to call back-to-back screen attempts the Chiefs easily snuffed out.
The conditions undoubtedly played a role too. Frigid temperatures haven’t exactly been a common occurrence for Tagovailoa in any level of his career, but he looked like a quarterback rattled by the wind chill. You could forgive him for not taking many shots down the field – although one of the few he did try resulted in a Tyreek Hill touchdown. But more concerning were the miscuses on throws behind or just past the line of scrimmage.
That is where things began to really separate between the two teams. Once it became clear that Tagovailoa wasn’t going to be able to make much of a difference with his arm, the Chiefs were able to smother Hill and just wait for Tagovailoa to force something or hand it off to Raheem Mostert.
Mahomes, conversely, made the Dolphins respect the pass, and that helped open things up for Isiah Pacheco. The Chiefs finished with 146 yards on the ground, 89 of which came from Pacheco, while Miami had 76, with Mostert leading the way at 33 yards.
Even though drives were stalling at times once they got past midfield, it was telling that the Chiefs were consistently comfortable settling for field goals when the result was still in doubt. It seemed like an implicit admission they knew the Dolphins wouldn't get anything going on offense.
It’s not as though Mahomes was dicing the Dolphins up with a bunch of deep shots -- he didn't connect on any of this three attempts beyond 20 yards. But he put balls in the right spots for his receivers all night, something his counterpart was unable to do.
As it became clear that a cold snap was going to have an impact on the game, plenty of the discussion was around the importance of the run game. Ultimately, it was the massive difference in how each teams performed in the passing game -- and the impact that ultimately had on the ground for both sides -- that made the difference.