GLENDALE, Ariz. — There is a video on YouTube Chief of Kansas City Coaches occasionally show their players. It’s about how Allen Iverson, while visiting Georgetown amid great fanfare, was seduced by a walking teammate named Dean Berry, who knew how to do a cross.
As the story goes, Iverson, now a Hall of Famer basketball player, knew he needed to develop some moves to elevate his game as he was no longer able to dominate high school students. only by talent. But as the star of recruitment, he was too proud at first to ask Berry how to do it. In the end, he gives in and asks Berry to teach him, and you basically know the rest.
Lesson: Everyone can teach you something, if you don’t mind asking.
This is a particularly important lesson for the 2022-23 Captains, who started last season by selling their best wide collector walk, Tireek Hilland bring in a whole new group of quarterbacks Patrick Mahomes. Knowing this would take some work, Mahomes assembled his new receivers in Texas for some pitching in front of the Chiefs’ protest show. What he found was a group of players that had something they could teach him.
Marquez Valdes-Scantling just played for four years with Aaron Rodgers. JuJu Smith-Schuster was a former teammate of Ben Roethlisberger. Justin Watson played in Tampa Bay with Tom Brady. These guys have played with elite, Hall of Fame quarterbacks before, and as a result Mahomes finds it fairly easy to discuss concepts with them at a high level.
But there was also something else Mahomes had to learn.
“I had to learn to be a better leader,” Mahomes said Sunday night, after winning her second Super Bowl title and three-night Super Bowl MVP after winning her second MVP at age 27. “I am 27. have to learn how to stay with the guys, how not to let the little things slide. I have to teach the boys about the culture we have here, which I learned from Alex Smith and Derrick Johnson.”
Mahomes’ decision to keep that mission in mind during the off-season was the main reason he and the Captains became Super Bowl champions for the second time in four years, beating Philadelphia Eagles 38-35 on Sunday. It wasn’t always pretty or easy, and that lasted until the final game, where they led by 10 points after halftime and six points into the fourth inning. But whenever things get tough, Mahomes bows and leans on the work he put in months ago at a stuffy training ground in St. Joseph, Missouri, to help him and his team through.
“He wants to be the greatest player ever,” head coach Andy Reid said of Mahomes on Sunday night. “And he does it humbly. He works. And then when it’s time for the players around him to up their game, he helps them do it.”
Super Bowl LVII is Mahomes’ successor. The Chiefs’ spectacular superstar midfielder is on the Mount Rushmore track, and what he did on Sunday night was enough to keep us looking for chisels.
The details are worthy of a storybook. The captain is being pushed back by the Eagles — an NFC champion determined to prove they’ve always been the best team of the tournament. Deep, explosive, dominant on both fronts and led by their rising star quartet in Jalen hurts, the Eagle has appeared for most of the game to control it. Mahomes’ final game of the first half ended with him suffering an aggravated ankle injury a month ago, hobbling off the field and slamming his helmet on the ground in frustration. Everything looks bleak. From the outside, at least.
“When you have 15 in midfield,” the Chiefs left to tackle Brown Orlando will say when it’s all over, “anything is really possible.”
Mahomes walked out of the dressing room in that number 15 shirt, with a serious injury to his right ankle, and made a touchdown to take the lead down to three. He continued, throwing a few short touchdown passes into the great Andy Reid/Eric Bieniemy playstyles to take the lead with 9:22 remaining. And after the Eagles scored their own goal and converted it to 2 to equalize, Mahomes took the lead in scoring in the game.
History always remembers Super Bowl heroes. But when you think about this season, what is it? suppose To be at the top and Mahomes’ role in making it so much more, you realize that this victory was made over months of hard work.
Take me back to early August. I stood on one of the St. Joseph talks to Mahomes about what the offense would be like without Hill in it. Partly he’s excited, he said, because the new arrangement has given him the opportunity to make himself a better player.
“That helped me grow in midfield,” Mahomes told me that day. “If the first big shot we designed wasn’t there, I’d have to get the ball out of my hand and move the line. So let’s be more aggressive — still play big, take what’s there. and move the chain. Just get through the way I read how it’s called and find the right person, not necessarily just looking for a match per play.”
That’s where the real thing happens — where the good becomes the great. Not around Rihanna’s performance with the world watching in mid-February, but on the sweaty August training grounds, where cheers don’t matter as much as work.
“It’s great for him as a professional player in his future career,” Reid told me that day. “He’s got an attitude that wants to rip your heart out. So when teams give you a chance to do that, he’s going to take advantage of it, just like Tyreek. So it’s great that he can shoot now. go back and see and research all the coverage he has and how to combine it. It will be great for the package and his studies.”
I stood there and thought, “How many people out there think Mahomes needs to improve?” But the reality is that it doesn’t matter, because Mahomes always wants to improve, and that’s why he’s not only on the Mount Rushmore track but also on the Tom Brady track.
Yeah, I realize he’s five Super Bowl titles behind Brady and that’s a ocean among the Super Bowl titles he might not have come across. This is not about comparing those two players right now. It’s about looking at what makes Brady so great and thinking that Mahomes has some of the same things inside of him, too.
The team in which he won Super Bowl LVII is much different from the team in which he won Super Bowl LIV — a new offensive line, all new wide receivers, a rookie in the seventh round when running backwards and youth in the defense. Brady used to do that — join a new team every few years, find a way to win with that team, exert his own influence to instill the culture he demands every season. Mahomes gathered his newcoms together in Texas last season, which at least felt a bit like Brady was working with his guys on the high school practice field when he arrived in Tampa and COVID protocols are keeping them away from the facility. No matter what it takes, no matter what time of year.
Remember how Brady always does team-friendly contracts so the Patriots can maintain the flexibility to build around him and add pieces as/when needed? Look at the Mahomes deal. He’s got nine years left in it, and although the pay is huge, the structure gives the Heads all sorts of flexibility. His current projected cap for 2023 is $49.3 million, which would be the second-highest in the league if the team doesn’t change contracts. But the length and structure of the contract makes it easy to convert the listing bonus into a signing bonus and reduces that cap figure to $31 million. Going forward, we should expect the Captains to revise Mahomes’ deal to bring it in line with the top quarterbacks in the league. But don’t be surprised if he continues to help them structurally, the way Brady always does with the Patriots.
Add in the fact that all the rookies and young players have contributed to this latest Captains race — Trent McDuffie, Isiah Pachecoeveryone likes Kadarius Toney And moore sky who haven’t played much in the NFL but have star potential — and Kansas City is set to keep it going for a long time. The main reason is Mahomes, who has just won three games after the season due to ankle pain and with a defeated group of recipients. He’s a magician — an extraordinary talent with arms, legs and brains to dominate the tournament for years to come. And while Sunday affects how history views him, it’s what we learned about him last summer that clearly shows why the Captains are in the game. play this game in the first place — and why they probably won’t leave anytime soon.
The captain has won two of the past four Super Bowls and played in another. It’s stuff dynasty, folks. But what this year has taught us is this: Once the confetti has been swept away, the parade is over and the trophy case has been rearranged to fit the new ones, you can bet the first question. The first thing Patrick Mahomes will ask himself is what he has to do to get back to the Super Bowl next year.
