The legacy of Patrick Mahomes is not just that he won a second ring. It’s how.
Still in full uniform, but now with a white Super Bowl champion hat atop his head, Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes contemplated a question he had to assume would arrive. A question that most two-time champions receive in the aftermath of the encore.
Does it feel any different than the last one?
Mahomes actually had an answer for it.
“I appreciate it because of the failures,” he said, as though he was eager to reply.
It’s the most revealing answer he provided in the aftermath of lifting the Lombardi Trophy for a second time after a 38-35 victory against the Eagles in Super Bowl LVII.
Because it’s not just about one game. What we should take away from the past 12 months is that Mahomes is an athlete driven by his failures — even more than his successes. Beyond that, though, we ought to carefully examine the way he harnesses that drive.
A loss to the Buccaneers in the Super Bowl or to the Bengals in the AFC Championship Game doesn’t simply act as a form of bulletin board material. It doesn’t simply prompt him to work harder or longer. It prompts real changes to the way he thinks, and ultimately the way he operates.
Mahomes is a two-time Super Bowl champion — one of only 13 quarterbacks with that title now — but his legacy should not be that he secured a second ring to join that exclusive club. It should be how.
Let’s remember the storylines of the 2021 season, because that’s the context that matters here. At the onset of 2021, opposing defenses told Mahomes he wanted to be a gunslinger. They were right, by the way; that’s his nature. At the conclusion of that same season, the Bengals defense termed Mahomes incapable of becoming a pocket passer, and for one half they were right, too.
But the Bengals were wrong last month.
And the Eagles were wrong last weekend.
Mahomes is no longer Mahomes. Sure, he reached the same result in Glendale, Arizona, that he reached in Miami Gardens in 2020. That day also concluded with a Super Bowl hat in his postgame meeting with media.
Same result.
But a much different player.
Mahomes does not care how it works. He just cares whether it works.
That prompts the change. His new method — his playing style — has evolved, and when I say evolved, I don’t just mean improved. He’s a different player because defenses forced him to be a different player, and he took that as an instruction. As a demand.
Mahomes, the kid who wowed us in his first year as a starter with his deep shots and every subsequent season with his off-script plays, became King of the Checkdown in 2022. He probably wouldn’t like that title. But he threw 21 touchdowns on passes that receivers caught behind the first-down marker, seven more than a year earlier and 10 more than 2021.
Second most in the NFL this season: 10. He more than doubled the field.
He tallied 35.8 expected points added (EPA) on throws behind the sticks, per Sports Info Solutions, nearly six times the amount of any other quarterback. Over the last two seasons, he had a negative EPA on throws behind the sticks.
It is a remarkable turnaround, and what has to be mentioned is it goes against the essence of the quarterback the Chiefs drafted — and one of the very reasons they drafted him.
Think this is a more enjoyable way of quarterbacking? Probably not. But more successful? Well, the Chiefs finished with the No. 1 offense in the league in both points and yards, and then they scored touchdowns on every possession in the second half of the Super Bowl until they voluntarily took the foot off the gas to set up the game-winning field goal with as little time remaining as possible.
Over four quarters in the Super Bowl, by the way, Mahomes threw one pass that traveled more than 20 yards in the air, and it fell incomplete. One of 27 attempts. That equates to 3.7%. Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts, by comparison, lofted seven of his 38 attempts (18.4%) at least 20 yards in the air.
To hell with the style. Mahomes stood on the world’s biggest stage and became content to only care about the final score rather than creating a highlight or two along the way. That’s an evolution, and it gets lost in the weeds because it came from the player most capable of producing those highlights.
It’s just part of the story, too. The pocket passer thing is real. Mahomes accumulated 105 expected points added on throws from inside the pocket this season, a 23% improvement from one year earlier. He lapped the field in that statistic, one year after finishing outside the top five.
There’s some Andy Reid scheming mixed into this narrative. The offense is his design, after all. But the quarterback has to be willing — and able — to make the modifications. This one was enticed by his own failure.
There’s been a lot made this week of where a second Super Bowl victory places Mahomes in his legacy of the NFL’s all-time quarterbacks. A third would prompt the same conversation. Then a fourth. And on we’ll go.
It’s too simple.
We can’t forget the how.
The true all-time greats win, and they lose the desire to impress you in their methodology. The satisfaction — even the entertainment — derives from the final result.
That’s the path Mahomes is on. It just means the results are more likely to follow.
This story was originally published February 17, 2023 at 6:30 AM.