The first moment I believed Patrick Mahomes is a unicorn
The secret of Patrick Mahomes was well kept at first.
I always suspected this strategy equal parts NFL secrecy and respect for Alex Smith. People forget this now, and they shouldn’t, but Smith did a lot for the Chiefs.
Before him, the previous five men to be the Chiefs’ starting quarterback were Matt Cassel, Brady Quinn, Tyler Palko, Kyle Orton and Brodie Croyle. The previous six seasons the Chiefs lost 67 games. Some of those quarterbacks were admirable leaders and teammates. None were NFL starters.
Smith was, and a damn good one. He helped the Chiefs complete one of the NFL’s best one year turnarounds — from 2-14 in 2012 to 11-5 and in the playoffs in 2013. The Chiefs drafted Mahomes in April 2017, and that fall Smith responded with his best season as a pro, leading the league in passer rating and adjusted yards per attempt as the Chiefs made their fourth postseason in five years.
So, yes, you’re damn right the Chiefs wanted to protect Smith. He handled Mahomes’ presence — the Chiefs essentially chose drafting Smith’s replacement over improving Smith’s team — with such grace that Mahomes’ father personally thanked Smith. He’d earned a little protection.
But, also secrecy. Football is a brutal sport but its highest level is typically operated with unrelenting discipline. Careers and reputations and millions of dollars are made based on expectations, and nobody wants to push too far.
Mahomes, though, somehow became the exception even before he took a snap.
You’d notice things, in the beginning. Established stars like Justin Houston and Eric Berry, in particular, taking extra interest in third-team training camp drills. Neither of those guys ever said much to reporters. But at least with this, they didn’t have to. All-Pros don’t care about backups, except when they think one of them might be an All-Pro.
You’d hear things, after the beginning. Smith took every snap of the Chiefs’ first 15 games in 2017 but Mahomes spent practice time slicing the starters when given a chance. He needed refinement. That always came through from anyone who saw practice.
But so did this: the stuff he did in practice left millionaire ballplayers shaking their heads. No-look passes. Throws made on plays so outside convention that receivers had to change their depth, and defensive backs had to cover ground previously unreachable by human quarterbacks.
His first start came in an otherwise meaningless game between the Chiefs, who rested as many starters as possible with playoff seeding secure, and the Broncos, playing out a last-place finish.
Mahomes was terrific, with deep passes through seemingly impossibly small windows, a no-look throw that froze a linebacker, and an absurd, holy-$#&^-did-that-just-happen conversion between four defenders.
I’ve mentioned this before, and I’m not particularly proud of this, but that throw was so far removed from what I’d grown accustomed to seeing quarterbacks able to do that I quite literally jumped from my seat and screamed and hugged then-beat writer Terez Paylor.
Professionalism is my code, usually. Exceptions exist. Here’s one:
But it took until the next year’s training camp for me to go from “Mahomes is probably going to be a star someday” to “Oh my gawd we are watching a unicorn.”
Because that’s when I saw this video, a sort of underground highlight clip training camp:
This play is everything. It begins as a routine rollout to the right, a play designed to free the tight end at the front of the end zone or the receiver near the back.
But nothing is there, and Mahomes sees that, and this is when a normal quarterback throws it out of bounds or, if he’s feeling lucky, tries to run. Mahomes is not normal, though, so he ball fakes the spying linebacker like some sort of point forward on the wing, steps back inside toward his left, and without setting his feet throws back toward his right (sidearm, obvi) with the ball placed immaculately between two closing defenders and into the hands of a receiver who under no circumstances believed he was going to be the target when the ball was snapped.
Few.
That’s a lot.
Please let me fan myself a bit and take a sip of water before we continue.
But wait, there’s more! The part that puts it over the top is right there at the end — the last second or so. Here, watch what he does after the release:
See that? The way he shuffles back, away from the throw with a little hitch and holding his hand out like a dang shooting guard watching a top-of-the-key three-pointer he knows is about to splash? Ridiculous. He just did the impossible, and finishes it like a mix tape.
Look, there were other practice highlights. A sidearm fastball away from his body between two defenders. A sprint rollout to the left and 45-yard throw down the sideline. A no-look rope completed 20 yards downfield.
But it’s all in that clip above. The agility. The confidence. The calm. The brain. The arm talent.
The backward shuffle.
The only videos saved on my phone are the Royals’ celebration after the 2014 Wild Card game, my kids, my dog, and Mahomes at practice. I’ve watched the clip above a hundred times, always asking this one question: who the hell has the gall to do something like that?
Two years later, we have the answer. The guy about to win league MVP and Super Bowl MVP in his first two seasons playing has the gall to do something like that.