KANSAS CITY, Mo. One of the most fun and subtle things about sports is how they become part of us. Not just the memories, or the excitement. That happens, too, but the point for now is something more gradual and easy to miss.
The rhythms. The language. The lifestyle.
Baseball fans get nostalgic, basketball writers sometimes wear nylon on off-days and football fans are serious. And paranoid.
That might be especially true here at this moment in history Patrick Mahomes, the quarterback Kansas City has waited to see for decades but never genuinely expected, spending chunks of the offseason doing late-night talk shows, watching basketball games, flying coast to coast and seemingly signing an endorsement for every touchdown thrown during his MVP season.
So, at least a vocal minority of a fan base worries.
You cant blame them. Theyve been through so much. Lost so many times. They havent had it this good since the franchises only Super Bowl win a half-century ago, and history has taught them to expect it all to be taken away.
The first theory to materialize: Mahomes might regress because of too much stardom. He will become complacent, or out of shape, or overconfident, or … something.
Well, heres a counterpoint: That is all nonsense.
On the first official day of the Chiefs offseason, Mahomes said his only goal was winning a Super Bowl. In a recent email exchange, Mahomes agent, Leigh Steinberg, described his clients priorities like this:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5.) Doing whatever necessary in physical and mental preparation to take the team to the next level.
There are other points to make here. One of the reasons the Chiefs front office and coaches fell in love with Mahomes and they fell in deep, passionate, platonic love almost immediately is that he struck them as fully committed to the cause of playing quarterback.
They found his brain and disposition to be perfectly suited for the job. He processes quickly, and has yet to appear rattled. The balance he walks between unshakable confidence and approachable humility is hard to fake.
To divorce himself from such a fundamental part of his personality would be a shocking development.
Some personnel folks in all sports divide prospects and established stars into two groups: those motivated by what they can do in the sport, and those motivated by what the sport can do for them.
A shred of evidence that Mahomes is the latter has yet to materialize.
