Kansas City Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes hopes to emulate more than just Tom Brady’s success
Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes had a lot going on in March, what with his wedding and honeymoon, so he sort of missed the news that Buccaneers star Tom Brady had ended his brief retirement.
But as Mahomes told Yahoo Finance’s Brian Sozzi on Thursday, he wouldn’t have believed Brady had called it quits until later this year anyway.
“Until I see that there’s an NFL game played and he is not in the league,” Mahomes said, “I don’t think I’ll ever really truly believe that he’s retired.”
Brady, who turns 45 in August, will be back for his 23rd NFL season. Brady has won seven Super Bowls and three MVP awards, and that is the kind of success Mahomes hopes for in his career.
But beyond the championships, Mahomes told Sozzi he also wants the kind of longevity Brady has enjoyed.
“I want to play as long as they’ll let me. I know that will take me taking care of my body, me continuing to build my family the right way and make sure those relationships are always great before football, and I think Tom’s done that in the right way,” Mahomes said. “You can see how close he is with his family, but as well how much he gives to football every single day.
“It’s a great model. If you want to play for a long time and have a lot of success, you’ve got to do a lot of the same things that he’s done, taking care of his body on and off the field.”
Brady has appeared in 10 Super Bowls, while Mahomes nearly got to his third with the Chiefs this past season. But after jumping to an 18-point lead in the AFC Championship Game, the Chiefs saw the Bengals storm back and win in overtime.
Mahomes talked about this past season and mentioned the upgrades made by the Broncos, Chargers and Raiders.
“We battled through a lot of adversity this year,” Mahomes said. “We started off not the way we wanted to, but we found a way to catch a groove, and then obviously we got to the AFC Championship Game but we didn’t get to the Super Bowl. That’s always our goal, is to get to the Super Bowl and win it. You’ve got to learn from the mistakes you made throughout the season, you’ve got to take away the positives that you did and try to be better the next year.
“Everybody’s getting better, especially in our division. And so for us, we have to go out there and try to be better than we’ve ever been and try to give ourselves another chance to compete for a Super Bowl.”
Mahomes completed 66.3% of his passes last season with 4,839 passing yards and 37 touchdowns but also a career-worst 13 interceptions.
Finding success throwing from the pocket is a goal for Mahomes in the 2022 season.
“I feel like I’ve always been able to make plays happen outside of the pocket, but defenses know that,” he said. “They’ve had a lot of tape on me just like I’ve watched tape on them, and they’re trying to do stuff to put me in bad situations and not let me get outside the pocket and make things happen.
“So I have to be able to continue to get better from within the pocket, getting the ball out of my hands, taking what’s there when a defense is playing these real deep coverages against me, and hopefully make positive plays happen that will help our team win football games.”
This story was originally published April 1, 2022 at 9:43 AM.
