Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes continue to develop the team’s Texas workouts

The Kansas City quarterback’s offseason workouts with his receivers are now all but official.

Before the coronavirus pandemic turned the world upside down in the spring of 2020, NFL teams spent the first two weeks of their offseason programs in the team facility, going to meetings and working in the weight room; coaches were not allowed to run practice sessions of any kind.

Those rules remain in place. But in 2020, teams learned how to conduct virtual meetings using tools like Zoom. It’s allowed some teams — particularly the Kansas City Chiefs — to fashion some player-only workouts for their offenses.

“[It’s] more productive for the offense,” head coach Andy Reid explained to reporters (through Zoom, of course) on Monday, “because they can go out and actually throw the ball around and do that part of it. Defensively, it’s hard to set up an offense and then have [them] do whatever they do against you. So I think this Phase One favors the offense that way.”

The Chiefs have an additional advantage: their quarterback Patrick Mahomes likes to spend his offseason in his home state of Texas. So ever since the 2019 offseason, he’s held an informal “Camp Pat” for his receivers by inviting them to join him in the Lone Star State. And each year, it has become more integrated into the team’s offseason routine.

“I don’t think it’s too much different than being up at the facility,” noted Mahomes — although the physical distance between the workouts and the team’s coaches back in Kansas City is enough of a difference to make it acceptable under the league’s rules. “But at the same time, I think just the guys hearing it from me [is good], because we get the workouts in before the meetings. [They hear] how I explain things, how I explain the routes [and] what I’m kind of thinking. Then [we are] getting to go into the [virtual] meeting room, [where we] hear the coaches and how they explain this stuff.”

And according to Mahomes, he’s also getting an opportunity to listen.

“I get to hear what they are thinking and what they’re really going [after],” he noted. “I think sometimes when the coach is around, they want to do exactly how the coach says — which is the right thinking. But whenever I can hear what they’re thinking whenever they’re running their routes, it helps me know where they’re gonna be at [and] what their timing is going to be.”

Reid — while acknowledging that the team’s repeated deep playoff runs leave little time for recharging between seasons — noted that the Texas sessions also help build team chemistry during time away from the facility.

“It gives the guys an opportunity to stay away from here,” said the head coach, “and maybe [be in] a little bit more relaxed atmosphere — but at the same time, get a ton of work done. And also, there’s a little camaraderie that goes with it, which is important on the offensive side; the guys work and play together and are kind of on the same page.”

It’s a Phase One schedule that Mahomes and his receivers can live with.

“It’s like three times a week — two to three times a week, depending on the week and the plan with the coaches — and then we meet with the coaches at 12 o’clock,” explained Mahomes. “So it’s pretty good. You kind of get everybody in and out before two o’clock [or] whenever the meetings end. But it gets the work in.”

Best of all… it works.

“It’s been effective for us,” declared Reid. “The guys have come back in great shape. They’ve come back knowing what their responsibilities are. And at the same time they’re getting, that influx of new [information] and our scheme evaluation from last year [that is] thrown out by the coaches [over Zoom].”

“There’s a lot of things that you’re worried about during [the] season,” said Mahomes, “or trying to run the thing just how the coach says. But when I can hear them — and we talk it through — and [then when] we hear it from the coaches, we can all be on the same page.”