‘It’s not normal’: This Patrick Mahomes superpower harnesses all his NFL talents
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Chiefs become first NFL team to play regular-season games in four countries.
- Mahomes' evolving mindset and preparation drive Chiefs' sustained dominance.
- Coach Reid credits Mahomes' adaptability over stats during challenging seasons.
As of kickoff at Corinthians Arena on Friday at 7 p.m. Central, the Chiefs will become the first NFL team to play regular-season games in four countries outside the United States.
The globetrotting is part of the Kansas City organization’s audacious endeavor to become known as the “World’s Team,” a literal sphere of influence that challenges coach Andy Reid’s inclination to control as much as possible.
No doubt that includes an aversion to 10-hour-plus plane flights, a preference for shorter trips from their hotel to a game than the anticipated nearly two-hour ride the Chiefs will face and stadium turf they can feel certain about.
Still, Reid appreciates the grand scheme and framed it as a matter of perspective: In essence, are the Chiefs stuck with doing this … or do they get to do it?
The answer is to treat it as an honor, he said, bestowed for their success.
There are a lot of reasons for this dynastic recent past, of course, and for the Chiefs’ increasingly world-wide renown.
The 67-year-old Reid is the fourth-winningest coach in NFL history with 301 wins and has a fine chance to ascend to the top (Don Shula’s 347) in the next few years. His alignment with KC general manager Brett Veach is the epitome of synergy.
Tight end Travis Kelce is a superstar whose recent engagement to infinitely popular singer Taylor Swift has made him one of the most well-known players in NFL history.
Defensive lineman Chris Jones one day figures to be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo is making a case to become the first assistant coach to land in Canton.
And plenty more.
But as we start another season in this still-surreal departure from a half-century of futility, it bears mention over and over and over that one uniquely indispensable force catalyzed this honor.
And it’s ultimately why the Chiefs stand where they are today: On a world stage in Sao Paulo, and in pursuit of their third Super Bowl victory in four seasons and fourth in seven.
Patrick Mahomes has transformed what it is to be a Chiefs fan, and, in certain ways, even what it feels like to live in Kansas City.
With his vast repertoire and improv featuring elements of baseball and basketball skills, he’s the face of the NFL and has recast the traditional confines of quarterbacking.
Most to the point, there is ample reason to believe there’s more to come with what Reid called a “healthy part” of Mahomes’ career remaining, even as he will turn 30 on Sept. 17.
That’s not just because of his arm, uncanny spatial awareness, eidetic memory and well-documented competitiveness.
It’s because all of that funnels into a sheer resolve and imagination and will to win, a certain superpower related to — but distinct from — simply being competitive.
As such, Mahomes evidently not only is immune to complacency but actually has become more adamant with success. Instead of indulging any sense of satisfaction, he remains consumed with getting the best out of himself.
He’s still the guy who doesn’t dwell on his accolades or feats but thinks “about that fish that got away,” as one of his high school coaches, Adam Cook, told me in 2019.
Only more so now.
When I asked offensive coordinator Matt Nagy the other day what has changed most in Mahomes since he entered the league in 2017, he pointed to something somehow self-perpetuating.
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Mahomes, he said, comes back year after year after year more motivated to lead “in every way possible.”
“An all-encompassing deal,” Nagy said.
That sort of drive, he added, “It’s not normal.”
Which accounts for why Mahomes surely is more motivated by what’s before him than what’s behind him.
Only Tom Brady (35-13) has won more postseason games than Mahomes (17-4). And only Brady (seven), Terry Bradshaw and Joe Montana (four) have won more Super Bowls than Mahomes’ three.
“When you accomplish what he (has),” Veach said during training camp, “the only thing left to do is to just add to what you have.”
As Mahomes’ mind-boggling first season as QB1 unfurled into 50 touchdown passes and 5,097 yards in 2018, it was easy for anyone following the Chiefs to become fixated with his stats — which have been considerably less gaudy the last two seasons, in particular.
Mahomes, though, never talks stats, Reid said.
“I heard him talk about winning, and what we need to do to win the game,” Reid said in his dorm office in St. Joseph. “All the … me–me-me stuff, he’s not into all that.”
An underappreciated case in point: After the Chiefs’ 17-10 victory at Baltimore in the AFC Championship Game in 2024, Reid lauded Mahomes for having the presence of mind to take a sack to compel Baltimore to use a timeout — the very sort of thing you do when you’re focused most on how to win.
So while Mahomes naturally would rather have more prolific numbers than not, you misread his essence if you focus on stats. Especially considering such variables as pass protection and an either diminished or injury-riddled receiving corps the last two years.
Instead, here’s what defines him:
Simply think of all the times and ways Mahomes has come through when it looks dire, including to overcome double-digit deficits in all three Super Bowl triumphs and his considerable role in the Chiefs having won an NFL record 17 straight one-score games.
It stems from a mindset that separates him from most mortals, something that’s infectious for a team and a fan base and frequently demoralizing for opponents.
I’m not sure I’ve ever heard anyone describe that mentality better than Rich Keefe, the former director of sports psychology at Duke University and author of a book on the psychology of peak athletic performance called “On The Sweet Spot: Stalking The Effortless Present.”
When we spoke about the apparently unsinkable Mahomes a few years ago, he put it this way:
“You know his psychology has to be, ‘I can do this. Where is it? Where’s the lock that fits this key? Because I have a key.’ ”
That’s a trait in itself, to be sure.
But it would be hollow without what went into it.
It’s all animated by how Mahomes goes about his day-to-day business, Reid said, such as the time he invests in taking care of himself and film work. And his ambition, as Mahomes put it a couple weeks ago, to “dominate every single rep” … in training camp.
No doubt it’s further enabled by the hunger it takes to welcome criticism and the humility required to behave like he’s part of something bigger than himself, even if he is the biggest part of that.
So what we see on the field is derived from all that.
“It’s part of the whole,” Reid said.
And part sum of the parts. Reid likes to equate playing quarterback to being a farmer, at least in the sense that there’s always more work to be done.
More, in a lot of ways, than we might realize or appreciate.
“The game’s always changing. Your offense is changing,” Reid said. “And then that personnel changed.”
Meaning last season, when the Chiefs were without their top two receivers and No. 1 running back for much of the season.
Meaning Mahomes had to manage complicated circumstances and personalities and timing on the fly.
“You’re asking somebody to shoot through a keyhole in a split second, and you’ve got it without reps with somebody,” Reid said. “That’s tough.”
So even if it didn’t show up in the numbers — 26 TD passes and a (starting) career-low 3,928 yards as the offense finished 15th in scoring for a second straight year — Reid reckoned Mahomes had “one of his better years as far as managing everything.”
To be sure, this season will present its own challenges for the Chiefs.
Top target Rashee Rice is suspended for the first six games, and the left side of the offensive line is composed of rookie tackle Josh Simmons and second-year man Kingsley Suamataia trying to reset after a rough rookie season playing the outside spot.
Much like last year, an emphasis of training camp was reviving the deep ball — which didn’t play out. Who’s to know whether it will or won’t this time around?
Just the same, the Chiefs still have some stuff going for them that no one else in the NFL does — all orbiting around the mind-meld between one of the greatest offensive minds in league history and one of its most special talents.
And for all the other great quarterbacks and big arms out there, no one today — and few before — has established what Mahomes has: the enduring indomitability that explains more than anything else why the Chiefs have the honor of extending this exotic tour.
This story was originally published September 4, 2025 at 10:39 AM.