In 2018, his second NFL season, Patrick Mahomes worked his way to the NFL’s Most Valuable Player award after becoming the third player in NFL history to throw at least 50 touchdown passes in a single season, following Tom Brady and Peyton Manning (53, including the postseason). In 2019, working through regular-season injuries and missing two games, the 24-year-old Mahomes caught fire in the postseason, throwing 10 touchdowns and two interceptions as he led the Chiefs to their first Super Bowl title in 50 years, and became the youngest Super Bowl MVP in the process when Kansas City beat San Francisco, 31-20, in Super Bowl LIV.
Now, here’s the scary part: Mahomes, as physically amazing as he’s been, it only getting better from the neck up. Mahomes detailed his process on the Seaason 3 premiere of HBO’s “The Shop.”
First, he said that he’d only been playing quarterback since his junior year of high school, which is terrifying enough. Then, he said that he “didn’t really understand how to read defenses until halfway through last year. I could read coverages, but to be able to pick up on little tendencies that defenses do? Stuff that [Tom] Brady and them have done? I was just playing, This year, I could actually recognize more and more stuff, and I think the more experience and the more I learn, I’ll be able to go out there and call plays and do that different stuff because I’ve seen it. And I think there’s still a long way for me to go there, And that’s where I feel that mentally, I can get better. Physically, I’ve done a lot of stuff and I’ve always worked on the fundamentals, but I think mentally, I can still take my game to a whole ‘nother level.”
That sound you heard was every NFL defensive coordinator uttering various profanities into the air. If Mahomes, who has no-brainer status as the most physically gifted quarterback in the league today when he’s healthy can elevate his process a few floors higher as he perfects the intricacies of the position, the sky is truly the limit.