Inside the KC Chiefs’ winning trifecta of Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce and Tyreek Hill

As Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes has animated Andy Reid’s already-innovative vision of offense to a mystical and practically mythical dimension, we’ve tried the last few years to find different ways to explore the dynamics.

Once that led to poking around online about the relationship between a composer and a performer, which took me to an essay on a Stanford website attributed to Samuil Feinberg, a renowned Russian composer and pianist.

Among other points made by Feinberg that seemed to have an uncanny application to the Reid-Mahomes kinship, he wrote this:

“It happens sometimes that a composer is unable to take into account all the technical, colorific and expressive possibilities of a master instrumentalist. Sometimes a composer trusts the performer to introduce some changes into the text … Such a friendly collaboration may help the author find a path to the most grateful exposition.”

With an e-mail nudge from Ned Seaton, publisher and editor-in-chief of the Manhattan (Kansas) Mercury, we also put Mahomes to the lens of improv in the spirit of Manhattan’s own Del Close, who is widely considered the father of American improvisational comedy. Close’s protégés include the likes of Bill Murray, John Belushi and Eric Stonestreet — the Kansas City, Kansas native, K-State product and dedicated Chiefs fan who also has enjoyed a role as Reid’s fictional brother, Randy.

In a 2015 interview with backstage.com, Stonestreet related how his background in improv helped get him an audition for his signature role in the comedy series “Modern Family.”

“Things are not always going to go as planned,” he said, adding that the ability to think on your feet provides enormous confidence. “It’s about not freaking out, being in the present.”

Which brings us to the present with the Chiefs and Mahomes, who demonstrated that unflappable trait in an unfathomable way on Sunday in their 13-second escape act to tie the Buffalo Bills before they went on to win the game 42-36 in overtime.

The result further illuminated what’s so jaw-droppingly spectacular about the Mahomes Era as the Chiefs prepare to play host to the Cincinnati Bengals in the AFC Championship Game on Sunday at Arrowhead Stadium.

Because what’s become all the more evident is how much those terms of engagement extend beyond the epicenter of Mahomes and Reid.

They apply to Reid and his staff, Reid and the front office, to be sure, and from Mahomes across the locker room and back.

But in the most tangible and vibrant of ways, evidence of the creative potential of what Close called “a melding of the brains” and Feinberg referred to as “the mind of the composer (becoming) the performer’s own” is on brilliant display in the virtually unprecedented trifecta of Mahomes, Travis Kelce and Tyreek Hill.

Each of the three unique talents, of course, is remarkable in himself — from Kelce’s stunning elusiveness and maneuverability for his size, to Hill’s beautifully honed receiving skills that tend to be obscured by his dazzling speed, to all that makes Mahomes what he is beyond the arm.

Gaudy numbers reflect that, too, most notably in the moment the fact that Kelce and Hill each rank in the top 16 in career playoff receiving yards, and soon will share a spot in the top 10. Both appear on imminent course toward the top five.

Let’s stick with the postseason numbers, which are an extension of crazy regular-season stats, for another moment.

With his eight catches for 96 yards, including the game-winning touchdown last week, Kelce is now eighth in NFL history with 1,196 postseason receiving yards. If he manages the eighth 100-yard playoff game of his career this weekend, he’ll rank fifth in NFL annals. With four more receptions, he’ll become just the third player in league history with 100-plus postseason catches.

With his 11-catch, 150-yard effort last week, including the 64-yard TD reception with 1:02 left that on most occasions would have been the most memorable play of the game, Hill now has 77 career postseason receptions and 1,003 receiving yards. Each figure is second only to Kelce in franchise history.

Hill crossing the 1,000-yard postseason barrier established an even more monumental distinction for the duo: Kelce and Hill are just the third pair of players to have more than 1,000 receiving yards while playing together, joining only the elite likes of the Raiders’ Fred Biletnikoff and Cliff Branch and New England’s Julian Edelman and Rob Gronkowski.

But it’s the chemistry by which they’ve come to these numbers that most boggles the mind. It also amplifies how the trio is greater than the sum of its considerable parts, parts of an offense that could be even more resounding with the recent emergence of Mecole Hardman and Byron Pringle.

That connectivity explains how the trio came through in the crucible against the Bills: In the final 2 minutes of regulation and overtime, Hill caught four passes for 97 yards and a TD and Kelce had three catches for 44 yards and the deciding points.

Call it collaboration, or improv. Heck, you could even call it a form of jazz. Consider how this definition from “A Passion For Jazz!” puts it: “Composed music and improvised music may seem to be opposites, but in Jazz they merge in a unique mixture. The challenge to Jazz improvisation is playing music with both spontaneous creativity & intentional conviction.”

When it’s grim, be the Grim Reaper, Reid said the other day.

He could also have said: When you’re in a jam, have a jam session.

We’ve seen examples over and over among these three.

How often has Mahomes hit Hill in such a way as to accelerate his stride when both keep running and scanning after a scripted play breaks down?

How many times have Kelce and Mahomes appeared to have telepathy either in anticipating an original break or adapting as Mahomes extends a play?

“All three of them trust each other, and that’s important,” Reid said. “They have that innate ability to know where the guy is going to be against whatever leverage the defender has on them. I appreciate that. It’s a fluid game, so you’re going to have to make adjustments, you’re going to have to do it with routes where it’s not going to be perfect, like you might see with a (play) that you’ve drawn up.

“The other team is playing, too, so you have to maneuver around. And it sure helps to have that chemistry when teams are showing you a bunch of different looks.”

That notion has been validated plenty before, most vividly in a mic’d-up sequence between Kelce and Mahomes during a 51-31 comeback win over Houston in the playoffs two years ago.

During an exchange on the sideline after one connection, an incredulous Kelce tells Mahomes, “I don’t understand how you know what I’m doing.” When Mahomes tells him, “I knew you were going to turn,” Kelce laughs and says, “There is nothing telling you I was going to do that, and the ball was in the air before I did it.”

To which Mahomes replies, “That’s what I wanted you to do.”

Fascinating as that was, it was just a preamble to what took place on Sunday when the Chiefs took over trailing 36-33 with 13 seconds left. Again mic’d up by the Chiefs, Kelce on the sideline before the play told Hill, “They might man you up. (If they do), I’m saying go outside and come back in like (you’re) running a route outside. That way when you come back in, I can get in the way.”

Presto, Mahomes’ short pass to Hill was good for 19 yards, giving the Chiefs the ball at their own 44 with 8 seconds left. After the timeout, Kelce, a high school quarterback, walked over to Mahomes and said, “Hey, hey, they play it like that, that seam is open.”

And, indeed, they played it “like that,” overprotecting deep and on the sidelines despite the Chiefs needing just a field goal and having timeouts in hand.

At the line of scrimmage, via CBS microphones and picked up by The Star’s Jesse Newell, Mahomes can be heard yelling, “Do it, Kels! Do it! Do it, Kels!”

With Kelce muttering a “uh-huh” at the line and thinking, “Aight, here we go, boys,” as he said afterward, he broke open down the middle for a 25-yard gain that set up Harrison Butker’s game-tying field goal as time ran out.

No big deal.

“He was going in that direction anyways,” Reid said with a smile, “so it was just how he got there.”

More seriously, Reid noted that there’s a reason he gives them that freedom to adjust even beyond the context of the scripted options.

“It doesn’t happen very often, but when they do, they’re normally right with that type of thing,” he said. “They know the plays and they know what they can get away with and what they can’t. They’re very good with that.”

Noting such riffs are all the result of preparation during the week and communication during the game, Mahomes said, “You have to be able to not only know what you have, but know what everybody else in the entire offense has. That just comes with guys that know the offense and run it the right way.”

And the right way by now includes knowing how and when to introduce “some changes into the text” … and being able to meld minds with your partners and stay poised when you want to freak out … and maintaining “both spontaneous creativity and intentional conviction.”

That’s become as true among Mahomes, Kelce and Hill as it is between Mahomes and Reid.

And even among ample other assets, it’s what has put the Chiefs on a path toward “the most grateful exposition” of their potential.