Through three games in the follow-up to a 2018 MVP season in which he threw for 50 touchdown passes, Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes isn’t just beating the regression curve — he’s beating the daylights out of it. He’s also doing things against quality defenses that make it look like he’s about to put up a season the likes of which we’ve not seen. With 82 completions in 114 attempts for 1,195 yards and 10 touchdowns with no interceptions, Mahomes is starting to go where no quarterback has gone before.

If you’re not familiar with regression analysis, well, here’s one complicated version: “A set of statistical processes for estimating the relationships among variables. It includes many techniques for modeling and analyzing several variables, when the focus is on the relationship between a dependent variable and one or more independent variables (or ‘predictors’). More specifically, regression analysis helps one understand how the typical value of the dependent variable (or ‘criterion variable’) changes when any one of the independent variables is varied, while the other independent variables are held fixed.”

Uh, yeah. So, here’s the layperson’s version: When looking at an outlier of any kind, regression analysis looks at the factors that may have produced that outlier, and the factors that may cause regression to the mean. In other words, regression analysis is the ultimate buzzkill, in that it tells us what the successor to any out-of-the-blue amazing thing might be, based on historical factors.

There’s also something called the Plexiglas Principle, invented by baseball saber-god Bill James, which states that generally, improvements in player or team efficiency are gradual and happen over time. Teams or players who experience radical shifts in efficiency and production in one space of time tend to regress to the mean over time.

So, when we look at a second-year quarterback setting the NFL ablaze as Mahomes did in 2018, we also look at several factors that would cause regression to the mean over time. The ability of opposing defenses to adjust to quarterbacks is one; injury and personnel attrition is another; historical reference to other quarterbacks who have had similar short-term cheat codes is another. Hitting the Plexiglas ceiling is certainly one more to consider.

Even with all those factors, Mahomes is perhaps the ultimate outlier — one whose seemingly impossible performances prove to be the standard over time.

In Kansas City’s 33-28 win over the Ravens on Sunday, Mahomes completed 27 of 37 passes for 374 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions against one of the most effective and complex pass defenses in the NFL. It didn’t matter that receiver Tyreek Hill and running back Damien Williams were inactive with injuries; Mahomes simply moved to other targets as he has all season. Instead of Hill, it was Demarcus Robinson with this amazing one-handed touchdown catch …

He can't be stopped 😤Demarcus Robinson gets his 3rd TD of the year! #BALvsKC | 📺: CBS pic.twitter.com/52G8OB52Lo — Kansas City Chiefs (@Chiefs) September 22, 2019

… or, it was a throw to rookie speed receiver Mecole Hardman, taking advantage of a Ravens coverage bust …

One big play after another 🙌#BALvsKC 📺: CBS pic.twitter.com/pq9oAkPYTM — Kansas City Chiefs (@Chiefs) September 22, 2019

… or, it was a quick pass to running back LeSean McCoy, who rumbled through the Ravens defense in ways Williams and Kareem Hunt used to.

Basically, however you try to defend Mahomes, you’re wrong. And his advancement against defenses that gave him fits in 2018 indicates that he’s processing things like a 10-year veteran. In Week 5 of the 2018 season, Mahomes had the worst game of his NFL career as he threw two picks and no touchdowns against the Jaguars. In Week 1 of the 2019 season, he faced a very similar Jacksonville defense, completing 25 of 33 passes for 378 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions. In Week 13 of the 2018 season, Baltimore bottled him up in a relative sense — Mahomes managed just two touchdown passes and threw a pick in 53 passing attempts. We saw what the sequel looked like.

Right now, Mahomes is on pace for 437 completions in 637 attempts for 6,373 yards, 53 touchdowns and no interceptions in the 2019 season. These are preposterous numbers, impossible to sustain over a full season — at least, you’d think so. But Mahomes has already faced two of the three defenses that gave him fits in 2018, and while there are two games upcoming against the Broncos, who frustrated Mahomes with their pressure packages and man and match coverages last season, Denver’s defense doesn’t look like the same unit it was in 2018.

So, yeah. There’s regression analysis. There’s the Plexiglas Principle. There’s NFL history, and there’s what Mahomes is doing to all those things. Outside of Peyton Manning and Tom Brady, there really aren’t quarterbacks who produce these types of seasons year after year. And even Brady and Manning don’t (or didn’t) tend to improve from their optimal seasons. Manning had a career-high Adjusted Net Yards Per Attempt (Pro Football Reference’s best efficiency metric for quarterbacks) of 9.78 in 2004, the highest single-season mark in NFL history. In 2005, he posted an ANY/A of 8.03 — still good enough for the league lead, but an obvious (and expected) downturn. Aaron Rodgers had an ANY/A of 9.39 in 2011; he fell to 7.33 in 2012. Nick Foles had an ANY/A of 9.18 in 2013; he fell to 5.93 in 2014. Brady’s single-season high was 8.88 in 2007; he missed most of the 2008 season with a knee injury and dropped to 7.38 in 2009. Brady moved back up to 8.25 in 2010 and 8.81 in 2016, but he’s also the greatest quarterback in NFL history, and he had some pretty average ANY/A seasons in the 5-6 range early in his career before he got on track.

Mahomes had an ANY/A of 8.89 in 2018, the sixth-highest single-season mark in NFL history. Is there any reason to doubt that he’ll flambe that number in 2019?

Until any one of these seemingly immovable concepts proves him wrong, Mahomes has the NFL on a string.