Two possessions into Monday night, Patrick Mahomes had made the wrong kind of career history.

Mahomes, for the first time in his storied career, had been intercepted on each of his first two drives. One was off his receiver’s hands, but it made no matter, the Kansas City Chiefs were sputtering against a Washington Commanders team without star quarterback Jayden Daniels and locked in a tie game.

Then came the second half, when Mahomes and Co. began to dominate, rolling up and down the field for three straight touchdown drives en route to the Chiefs’ 28-7 win over the Commanders.

“It shows the growth that we’ve had as a team,” said Mahomes, who piloted the Chiefs to their fifth win by double digits this season, already one more than last season’s total. “Offense, defense and special teams, I think we’re getting better and better each and every week. Even though we didn’t start the way we wanted to today offensively, it showed that we can battle through adversity and still continue to play the brand of football that we want to play. We’ll have to continue to get better and better.”

The end result wasn’t all that shocking considering the reeling Commanders have now lost three straight and were without their starting quarterback. Mahomes’ ability to put together a masterpiece after unprecedented early struggles was stellar, though.

Mahomes completed 25 of his 34 passes for 299 yards, three touchdowns, the two picks and a 104.9 rating. Impressive all told, but breaking down Mahomes’ night by the halves shines a light on how drastically the QB switched it up from one half to the next.

In the first half, Mahomes completed 53.3% of his attempts for 89 yards with no scores and a dismal 31.7 rating, the Chiefs tied, 7-7, heading into the locker room.

“The first half was weird,” said head coach Andy Reid of an opening half in which there were two scoring drives, three turnovers and no punts. “There wasn’t a lot of punting going on on either side, and there were no points on the board. That normally doesn’t go on.”

As for the second half, Mahomes was scintillating to the tune of an 89.5 completion percentage, 210 yards, three touchdowns, no INTs and a 152.3 rating.