Patrick Mahomes has been gifted motivation he definitely did not need
Patrick Mahomes might be the pettiest man in professional sports, and if you’ll allow me a minute or two here I’ll explain why this is a compliment.
First, let’s establish the petty. He once counted to 10 on his hands after a touchdown in Chicago, which is literally the last place on our planet where people need to be reminded the Bears drafted Mitchell Trubisky before the Chiefs took Mahomes with the 10th pick of the 2017 NFL Draft.
He once counted on his hands to four after a touchdown in Baltimore, a clear reference to the NFL Network ranking him “only” the fourth-best player in the league (which he welcomed in real time with a “taking notes emoji” post on Twitter that got nearly 100,000 likes).
Let’s just be clear about what we have here: From this information we know that Mahomes is so petty that he sees being fourth in a ranking most players do not take seriously as an egregious insult, and also so good that being ranked No. 4 in the world at his job is an actual insult.
His motivations are so far removed from a normal person’s reality that he recently mentioned that Chiefs employees — some of whom love Mahomes more than members of their own family — once cringed when he talked of building a dynasty (before his first snap as QB1, by the way), but that he now has the chance to prove them wrong, as well.
This is all a setup to say that the NFL playoffs are playing out to be something like a Petty Patrick Screw You Tour.
Let us count the ways.
- He faded in the MVP discussion despite the Chiefs winning all but one of his starts in the best season of his career in many ways, including a league-best interception rate and measured by passing yards per game.
- He suffered a not-exactly-a-concussion in the Chiefs’ first playoff game, which sets up a much-anticipated return and the sort of higher stakes that he’s always seemed to thrive with.
- He’s playing an AFC Championship Game against the team everybody is saying will be the Chiefs’ biggest rival going forward, led by the quarterback many were putting even or ahead of Mahomes in this year’s MVP talk.
- And then, the mother lode: a potential Super Bowl against either the quarterback we assume will (justifiably) win MVP, Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers, or the one with six rings and the only one he’s lost to in the playoffs, Tampa Bay’s Tom Brady.
Without an opponent directly challenging Mahomes’ manhood — open invitation here for Tre’Davious White to call him a system quarterback or something — could this be set up any better for the extra juice that Mahomes loves to squeeze from his football conquests?
Mahomes is not unique in his relentless thirst for disrespect, of course. This is time-honored, most famously by Michael Jordan completely fabricating a story about being cut in high school, the original ‘fake news’ that became an indelible part of Jordan’s legend.
The Last Dance documentary released last summer was essentially a 10-episode airing of old Jordan grievances that any sensible (and, by extension, less successful athletically) adult would have given up decades ago.
There are many other examples, from Brady routinely mentioning that he was the 199th pick the year he was drafted to the 2012 U.S. Men’s Basketball Team shouting they shocked the world after winning Olympic gold. That’s a real thing, by the way. I was there. I heard it. And nobody wrote about it, because athletes creating disrespect or motivation out of nothing but empty air is a timeless human tradition.
More than two years ago, cornerback Jalen Ramsey (accurately) mentioned that the Chiefs’ Tyreek Hill made All-Pro as a return specialist and not receiver. Since then, Hill has caught 3,688 yards worth of passes, scored 38 touchdowns, been named All-Pro twice (as a receiver), signed a $54 million contract and won a Super Bowl — and he’s still sarcastically calling himself as “just a return specialist.”
If Goliath had squished David, he’d have thanked all the haters afterward.
Which is sort of the point here, because when your worst NFL season is either the year you won MVP or the year you won Super Bowl MVP, you are essentially Goliath ... and now Goliath has a somewhat reasonable way to at least pretend he has haters.
Just what the Chiefs need, right?
Mahomes has regularly been at his best when he’s been challenged. He won AFC Player of the Week in his first game as the Chiefs’ starting quarterback, and then the next week, when people talked about how the Pittsburgh Steelers’ blitzes would confuse him, he threw six touchdown passes and zero interceptions.
In his first playoff start, in front of a crowd still emotionally sensitive from not seeing a postseason win at home in 25 years, he led the Chiefs to 31 points and a blowout win.
The next year, when the Chiefs trailed by 24 at the start of the second quarter, he made sure they led by four at the end of that quarter and by 20 at the final gun. We’ve seen this pattern develop, from the left-handed pass in Denver to Jet Chip Wasp in Miami.
Mahomes is a star in any context (except sliding). His blend of talent, work ethic, intelligence, all surrounded by next-level passing targets and coaching, is too much. He’s been the league’s greatest force since day one.
He doesn’t need help, but he’s consistently shown himself willing to take it anyway when presented anything even vaguely resembling a chance to prove himself.
Well, here it is. A chance to rewrite some narratives that he has undoubtedly heard. Wonder what he’ll count to on his hands next.
This story was originally published January 22, 2021 at 5:00 AM.