Patrick Mahomes was once not only one of the elite quarterbacks in fantasy football … he was the elite quarterback in fantasy football. From 2018-2022, he averaged no less than 20.5 fantasy points per game. In two of those seasons, he scored more than 400 fantasy points, and his 417.1 points in 2018 was the all-time best among quarterbacks before last season.
In 2023, however, something odd happened.
Mahomes, coming off a season that saw him score 417.4 points, saw his point total decline to 280.2 … that’s a drop of 137.4 points. It wasn’t the result of an injury of a fall in pass attempts either. Mahomes started 16 games and averaged 38.1 attempts per contest in 2022, and 37.3 per game (-0.8 change) the following year. Things didn’t get better last season either, as Mahomes scored 283 points and averaged 36.3 pass attempts per game. He finished 12th in points among quarterbacks.
That was the worst finish of his career.
The hows and whys of this situation aside ... some might argue it's a decline in the talent around him or a switch in offensive philosophies (which I don't see in the run/pass ratio numbers) ... the bottom line is simple: Mahomes' stats have been far less attractive in each of the last two seasons.
Mahomes' 2025 Fantasy Outlook
Mahomes, who will turn 30 in September, is entering his ninth NFL season. The Chiefs added help on the offensive line with the selection of rookie OT Josh Simmons in the draft, and the team has a chance to be pretty deep at wide receiver. Rashee Rice is coming back from a knee injury, Xavier Worthy showed flashes of potential in the second half of his rookie year, and the Chiefs also retained Hollywood Brown and drafted Jalen Royals out of Utah State.
This group of wide receivers, along with veteran Travis Kelce, gives Mahomes what could be his deepest group of weapons as a pro. That’s the good news. The bad news is that there are questions about how effective Rice will be coming off a torn LCL. What's more, he could still face league discipline for an off-field incident that occurred over a year ago. Kelce is entering his age-36 season, and his stats have declined right alongside Mahomes over the last two years.
Draft Or Pass?
Despite his name value and success on the field in terms of Super Bowl appearances and championships, Mahomes should no longer be considered an elite fantasy quarterback. But for some reason, he’s still the seventh quarterback coming off the board (54.2), on average, based on the ADP data at the NFFC (National Fantasy Football Championships).
In my opinion, that is a price far too high to pay for a quarterback (even Mahomes), who has seen such a drastic decline in statistical success over the last two years. Quarterback is a deep position too, so there’s no reason to pick anyone outside of the top five (Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, Jalen Hurts, Jayden Daniels, Joe Burrow) in the first five rounds of drafts.
If you’re able to land Mahomes past Round 7 as a low-end No. 1 fantasy quarterback, be my guest. But his days as an elite fantasy option are over and blindly drafting him in the top 60 based only on name value is a mistake.
Unless the price is right, Mahomes is a pass.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Fantasy Football Draft Or Pass: Should Managers Draft Patrick Mahomes?.
