Losses have always ticked off Patrick Mahomes. The response is what defines him
On the bus ride home after his final high school football game, a loss that would end his senior season short of the state championship, Patrick Mahomes and some friends texted their basketball coach. The hoops team had a game the following day, just 20 hours later actually, and Mahomes and his buddies wanted to play.
The coach was initially reluctant. “Crap, what am I going to do? ... These guys haven’t even practiced,” Whitehouse High School’s Brent Kelley said.
But Mahomes was rather insistent. He wanted a chance — an immediate chance — to erase the feeling of a loss.
Some things never change.
That’s all to say that this week — a trip to Las Vegas to play the Raiders — has noteworthy meaning for the Chiefs quarterback. No, not because of the longstanding rivalry. And no, not because the Raiders took a victory lap around Arrowhead Stadium after winning there last month. (Mahomes effectively tossed aside a question about the victory lap like he knew it was coming.)
It’s more simple than any of that. The Raiders beat the Chiefs. Beat Mahomes.
He didn’t have an opportunity to erase it 20 hours later. Six weeks can feel like a lifetime in the NFL. But not long enough to forget.
“The work that we put in every single day, when that doesn’t pay off and you lose football games, I think it kind of burns you a little bit more to work even harder,” Mahomes said.
It’s more than a theory. There’s history here.
Mahomes lost three football games last season — to the Colts, Texans and Titans. He’s yet to see the Colts again. But you might recall rematches against the Texans and Titans. The Chiefs saw those two teams in the playoffs, several weeks after the regular season losses. They beat them both. They scored more points in each of the rematches than they did in the initial meetings. Mahomes threw for 615 yards and eight touchdowns in the two playoff wins.
Coincidence? That’s up to you.
But...
“We don’t like losing to teams twice,” Mahomes said.
There’s one key difference this week, at least relative to last year’s playoff wins. Neither of those rematches were guaranteed, instead dependent on a playoff bracket.
This one in Vegas? It’s been on the schedule since the Raiders departed Arrowhead Stadium with a 40-32 win.
“I think anytime you lose to anyone, the next time you play them, you want to win the football game,” Mahomes said. “In this league, when you’re in the same division, you get that opportunity. So we’re excited for it.
“And we’ll be ready to go — I’ll promise you that.”
The vast majority of questions directed toward Mahomes on Wednesday centered on that first loss in October, perhaps revealing the rarity of its occurrence. Did they match the Raiders’ energy in that first meeting? “Clearly not,” Mahomes replied, not if you look at the result.
And that’s probably where this whole storyline of responding to losses will come into play Sunday night. There’s a desire to expunge the feeling, to be sure, and that dates back to Whitehouse High School in Texas. But there are things to be gleaned from a loss. Things that become clearer in a loss than they otherwise would in a win.
It stands as no coincidence that Mahomes has thrown for 12 touchdowns and zero interceptions in the ensuing four games, vaulting himself into the odds-on leader in the league’s most valuable player race.
“I think just the loss in general, it showed that we’re not going to just show up to the field and win every single football game,” Mahomes said. “We’re going to have the mindset that we’re going to come with our best effort every single week. I feel like we’ve built on that the following weeks. Luckily enough, we get another chance. We’ll hopefully come with enough energy to beat a really good football team.”
This story was originally published November 19, 2020 at 5:00 AM.