Patrick Mahomes plays down Justin Herbert comment

Patrick Mahomes didn’t mean anything by his quip about Los Angeles Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert over the weekend. The Kansas City Chiefs quarterback was walking to his ball at the American Century Championship in Lake Tahoe when he was caught joking with a fan by the broadcast.

Here’s the clip (which we also discussed on the Arrowhead Pride Podcast Network):

As you can see, Mahomes is told to watch out for Herbert. He tells the fan he’d “see it when he believes it,” obviously meaning he’d “believe it when he sees it.”

“Yeah, I think it got taken out of context,” Mahomes said, via USA TODAY’s Jori Epstein on Tuesday. “I was talking some trash to all those Raiders and Broncos and Chargers fans out there. I have a ton of respect for him as a player.”

Herbert nearly knocked off the Chiefs in the first start of his career back in September of last year, throwing for 311 yards and a touchdown as LA built a 17-6 lead. The Chiefs were able to rally back and win 23-20 in overtime thanks to some Harrison Butker heroics.

“For him to come out in Year 1 and play at that level is a special thing,” Mahomes added. “Not a lot of guys can do it. And I know I’ll have a lot of tough games against him in the future. So it was kind of a joking matter that I think blew up on Twitter like most things to do.”

Herbert did beat the Chiefs in Week 17 of last year, but that game was against Chad Henne and company — not Mahomes and the starters. We are due for two Mahomes-Herbert matchups in 2021, including Week 3 at Noon, which I believe could be a sneaky game-of-the-year candidate.

The second matchup is a Week 15 Thursday Night Football game in Los Angeles, in what could be the Chiefs’ most challenging game of the season, considering the short rest against their most talented division opponent on the road.