KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Patrick Mahomes doesn’t need my advice, or yours, unless you are Andy Reid in which case: Hi Andy, been meaning to thank you for the prime rib cooking tip. It’s perfection.
So, anyway, the advice. Mahomes doesn’t need it. Life is going just fine for him. But even this early in the column you can probably tell some advice is coming, so we might as well get it out of the way:
Patrick, don’t say you’ve spoiled fans with your play. Your friend LeBron James can tell you how that went for him. Not worth it.
He won’t, of course, because three years into this gig and it’s obvious he always says the right thing. But if he didn’t, and he slipped, and said his play spoils people … well, he wouldn’t be lying.
Most Chiefs fans are old enough to remember Matt Cassel and Tylers Palko and Thigpen at quarterback. And, actually, some of them were so desperate they talked themselves into Thigpen. Three years ago the Chiefs lost a home playoff game as an 8½-point favorite because they got bagel’d in the second half.
Now, the Chiefs are so good they score 32 points in a loss and everyone talks about what the offense should be doing better. And what Mahomes could be doing better. That has to be obnoxious.
“I don’t think he worries about that,” Reid, the Chiefs coach, said.
Reid said that, but he knows different. He knows that Mahomes monitors social media nearly as well as he does defenses. He’s the first Chiefs starting quarterback with a Twitter account, and he’s made his goals with it clear: he jokes with his teammates, supports his foundation, and scours for disrespect with a verified-only search filter.
“In this day and age that we’re in, you’re going to see stuff on social media and stuff like that,” he said. “You try to just still stay within yourself and go out there and prove those people wrong.”
Mahomes has not quite yet reached the Michael Jordan level of inventing disrespect from others — Jordan didn’t get cut in high school — but Mahomes did mock the Bears for letting him drop to the 10th pick in the 2017 draft, and he did mock his No. 4 ranking in the NFL Network’s top 100.
The ego required to find disrespect in being ranked fourth in the world is eclipsed only by the talent required to be underrated at fourth in the world.
And you know what? Good for him.
We’ve entered a weird new phase of Mahomes’ career. In 2017, he was a curiosity. In 2018, a phenom. In 2019, a champion.
Now, in 2020, he is apparently the guy many are sick of hearing about.
Depending on where he goes, Mahomes’ social media feed could be full of impressive throws from other quarterbacks with so many “if Mahomes made this throw” captions that it’s gone through the modern cycle of clever-then-viral-then-tired.
