Patrick Mahomes Fearlessly Embraces the Toughest Season

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  Seth Wickersham, ESPN Senior WriterJan 13, 2024, 08:00 AM ET

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  • Senior Writer for ESPN.com and ESPN The Magazine
  • Joined ESPN The Magazine after graduating from the University of Missouri.
  • Although he primarily covers the NFL, his assignments also have taken him to the Athens Olympics, the World Series, the NCAA tournament and the NHL and NBA playoffs.

IT’S NOT HIS FAULT, right?

Patrick Mahomes knows what we know, sees what we see — all those perfectly placed passes slipping through pass-catchers’ fingertips. His decision-making, normally impeccable, seems occasionally mortal this year. The Kansas City Chiefs quarterback has even been forced to find virtue in the once unthinkable, like checkdowns and punts. All the greats go through moments like this when stuff just doesn’t work. The methodologies are sound, the processes rebuild confidence, but on game day, something’s missing, both fundamental and psychological. What makes it worse is not just the anger of missed plays — it’s the compounding reality that a Super Bowl window closes fast. Even though Mahomes is throwing better than ever, even though his stature is bigger than ever, it’s the first time that he has seemed small, not just in terms of fame and celebrity thanks to the presence of the Chiefs’ newest superfan Taylor Swift, but because he has been reduced to screaming at officials and at dead air, at a loss for what he can’t transcend.

It’s hard to know what we’re witnessing, now that the playoffs are here. Will Mahomes emerge from the morass of this season intact, even altered in a profound way? Or have we already seen the best that this version of the Chiefs can offer? Mahomes has been such a disrupter, arriving so fast — 50 touchdown passes and a league MVP award in ’19, championship in ’19, runner-up in ’20, the unfathomable 13-second game-saving drive against the Bills in ’21, Super Bowl and MVP No. 2 last year — that he established his own standard and bent the game to his will. But now, Mahomes is going to have to travel a new path to the Super Bowl, without a bye and mostly on the road, with pangs of doubt and rage beneath those beautiful throws.

IN MOMENTS LIKE THIS, quarterbacks often revert to their basic and most essential selves, and so I visited Adam Cook, Mahomes’ high school coach. We met at a sports bar in Tyler, Texas, near Whitehouse, where Mahomes grew up. Kansas City’s famous offensive offside penalty was a week earlier. You remember what happened. The Chiefs were down 20-17 with 1:25 left. Mahomes hit Travis Kelce, who drifted to the middle of the field and into a collection of Buffalo Bills. Where Kelce would normally lower his shoulder, he stood up. A former high school quarterback, he passed the ball backward to receiver Kadarius Toney, who took it the distance …

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