What makes Mahomes unique

WHITEHOUSE, Texas — Behold … The Arm, perhaps someday in itself to be cast in bronze along with the bust in Canton already being prophesied for the man to whom it’s attached.

Its uncanny power couldn’t be more real.

But it’s also an optical illusion.

Because from out on this limb extends such a distracting aspect of Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes’ play that it obscures his essence, somewhat in the superficial way a fashion model or book cover might make indelible impressions that have little to do with their substance.

Because the reigning NFL most valuable player is anything but just another pretty arm.

“Everyone wants to talk about the arm; there have been arms better than his, I’m sure,” Bobby Stroupe, Mahomes’ personal trainer who has worked with him since fourth grade, said as he sat in his backyard one evening in July. “Been arms out there. There’s a thousand guys. Doesn’t matter.

“Arms don’t play quarterback. People do.”

In fact, the appendage isn’t even what most distinguishes Mahomes either as a player or a person, separate phases of his life that not coincidentally run on many parallel tracks in how he behaves and thinks.

When Stroupe considers what makes Mahomes unique, it starts with a quenchless work ethic counter-intuitively made possible by Mahomes being the “most prolific sleeper in the history of professional sport.”

“He’s like a sloth,” Stroupe said, laughing. “This dude sleeps, and that has got to be the No. 1 performance enhancer for him.”

But the real secrets to his success can be found in what Stroupe calls Mahomes’ true “superpowers”: empathy, social intelligence and real-time problem-solving capacity.

Guided by what Stroupe identifies as “almost a sixth sense” and a beautiful mind that longtime family friend and former coach Chad Parker calls a “geo-spatial magic box” (yes, we’ll get back to that), Mahomes is as readily considerate of others around him as he might be cognizant of a fleeting vulnerability in a defense to be exploited.

“He’s a guy who is extremely aware. Of everything,” Chiefs general manager Brett Veach said. “He’s aware of how hard you have to work to be successful. He’s aware of how much time you’ve got to put in the film room. He’s aware of how important it is to study.

“He’s aware about how you carry yourself and conduct yourself. He doesn’t miss anything.”

So as Stroupe put it with a smile, “You can talk about the arm. But you don’t have to.”