Before Patrick Mahomes signed 10-year extension, there was something he needed to know
Patrick Mahomes had ample obvious reasons to sign a 10-year contract extension with the Chiefs worth about a half-billion dollars.
He can provide for several generations of family now, for one thing. And he’s mindful of how he can further exert his charitable efforts and influence not only in the Kansas City community but “hopefully around the world,” as he put it Tuesday during a video conference with coach Andy Reid, general manager Brett Veach and the media.
But before Mahomes signed the unprecedented deal that he hopes leads to a football dynasty with a franchise that hadn’t been to a Super Bowl in 50 years until February, he wanted reassurance about one point in particular.
He wanted to know about the plans of the 62-year-old Reid, the offensive genius with whom Mahomes has such a mind-meld as to be able to animate Reid’s vision on the canvas of the field … albeit at times with his own flourishes.
Reassured that Reid had no thoughts of “retiring any time soon,” and perhaps could be around for the long haul until he’s 74, Mahomes was all the more eager to commit himself to an organization and culture he trusts in a city he has come to love and where he wants to leave a distinct legacy.
Knowing Reid will continue on for the foreseeable future, Mahomes said, was “a huge part of it.” Understandably enough.
The ever-evolving creative collaboration with Reid has become practically a living, breathing organism that has come to include finishing each other’s sentences.
Not to mention Mahomes’ punctuating visions of Reid’s burgeoning file of so-called “Pat plays” built with and for this once-in-a-generation talent made whole by his mentor.
But the inverse is exactly true, too.
You could say that Mahomes has completed Reid, one of the winningest and most respected coaches in the NFL but with his remarkable resume figuratively asterisked before last season by the absence of a championship.
Only in another sense you can’t quite say Mahomes has completed Reid … since there seems to be too much ahead of them now to even appreciate the composite view yet.
It’s an incomplete picture, in other words, and that seems quite a compelling thing to see filled in over these next few years with a young nucleus of stars, 20 of 22 starters back from a Super Bowl team … and the Mahomes and Reid Show evidently only beginning.
And who’s to say the invigorated Reid won’t see it through to the end of this Mahomes contract in 2031?
Even if he would be 74 by then.
“My young 70s, huh?” he said, smiling, as he repeated the suggestion. “I haven’t gotten to that point mentally to where I’m thinking about retirement. I love doing what I’m doing.”
Reid and the Chiefs were a perfect fit for each other when he arrived after the 2012 season after he was ousted in Philadelphia and when the Chiefs were reeling on and off the field. He has often raved about the support of owner Clark Hunt and other administrators, including current GM Veach … the man most responsible for selling the Chiefs on Mahomes.
To hear Reid playfully tell it, Veach, then the co-director of player personnel, nagged and pestered Reid and then-GM John Dorsey about Mahomes and ultimately told them Mahomes was the greatest player he’d ever seen in person.
Veach prevailed through any skepticism, leading the Chiefs to trade up to pick Mahomes 10th overall in the 2017 NFL Draft.
Now maybe he’s the best player anyone’s ever seen in person. Or on his way there, anyway.
“That’s kind of come to fruition for all of us to witness like Brett had,” Reid said.
But Veach wasn’t just guided by the superlative combination of talents and intelligence that other teams, and media critics, simply didn’t get. He also saw how that could be ignited by the imagination of Reid and supported by an organization with the patience to understand that Mahomes would be best off with a year as an understudy to Alex Smith.
“We knew that pairing Pat with Coach Reid was going to be something special,” said Veach, who was brought into the NFL by Reid in Philadelphia and is essential in this circle of trust. “And (that) they were going to be able to accomplish things that the league hasn’t seen before.”
Part of the reason Reid is so respected as a coach and a person is that he both shuns the spotlight and tries to deflect it to others.
So as Reid spoke Tuesday of the popular notion that “the great quarterbacks make everybody around them better,” he didn’t expressly say that included making him better.
And when he noted that “very seldom” do you see a contract that can be considered win-win for the player and the organization, he didn’t mention that perhaps it was a win for him, too.
But maybe that’s so well understood that it didn’t need to be said when it comes to two men whose trajectories enhance each others’ and whose futures seem very much entwined.
When Reid was asked the night of the Super Bowl victory over the 49ers if he would finally publicly unveil his imitation of Mahomes’ voice, which Reid has called “froggish,” Reid laughingly said, “I’ll get that to you when he’s inducted in the Hall of Fame.”
It’s a long time from now, and many things could get in the way. But maybe fate will enable them to walk in together that day ... particularly if Reid coaches through the duration of this contract.
“If (Mahomes’ presence) takes me into my 70s, let’s roll,” Reid said, smiling. “Doggone it, I’m ready to go.”