Time crowns (again) quarterback Patrick Mahomes: he is among the 100 most influential people in the world

The photo, the videos, a long article. Time crowns (for the second time in a row) Patrick Mahomes: he is among the 100 most influential people in the world. The champion of the Kansas City Chiefs with a unique style, inherited from baseball, where he also excelled, as in basketball, talks about himself simply and in 360 degrees in a long conversation from Dallas where he spent part of his off-season. What emerges is the portrait of a still young man who was courageous and unscrupulous in his game choices on the field as well as attentive and balanced in managing himself and the team that he wants to lead to new goals.

Alex Rodriguez’s anecdote

An excellent “sponsor” also speaks about the three-time world champion quarterback: Alex Rodriguez, an icon of baseball, a sport in which PM’s father was a professional athlete. A summary: “Patrick Mahomes has always had the heart of a champion. I remember Pat as a kid coming to train with his father (…) I distinctly remember giving him the worst advice ever. “Don’t let him play football. The money is in baseball.” I’m happy I was wrong and happy he didn’t listen to me! (…) His insatiable desire to win is surpassed only by his passion to give back and make the game better. world around him. Patrick’s legacy will live on well beyond his playing days, and as his consecutive Super Bowl victories prove, he’s not done yet.”

The goat

PM is chased by excellent comparisons with the greats of football, two above all: Joe Montana and Tom Brady. Unique theme: will you become stronger than them? Are you on the launch pad to be The Goat, the best of the best? But the quarterback dribbles the question as skillfully as his footwork. His answers, and not from now, are always the same, something that can be summarized as follows: “It’s early, he can talk about it at the end of his career, perhaps. Now I’m just thinking about playing, but it will be very difficult to match those heights.” Speaking of greats, Mahomes also mentions someone who has never won a Super Bowl: Dan Marino.

Tom Brady and the deception of age

Tom Brady on the field (and in the playoffs) up to the age of 45 was a great deception, PM makes clear. And he explains: “By playing up to an incredible age he made everyone believe that it is possible and easy for many if not for anyone. But that’s not the case at all. Tom was amazing in taking care of his body and everything. It will be difficult to match what Tom has done for so long; as well as what Peyton Manning or Aaron Rodgers did. There are so many guys who have been at such a high level for a long time. To participate in this conversation you have to do it year after year. You can’t take it for granted that you did it the year before.” Humble and concrete.

Taylor Swift praise

The inevitable question is about the pop star – linked to Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce – who is dragging millions of new fans towards NFL football. The response on Taylor Swift is positive: PM talks about her as a very intelligent girl who is interested in everything, cheerful and nice, capable of asking the right questions even about the touchdown game. Her presence, she says, puts us even more in the spotlight, but the team likes it.

Career and family

Patrick is conflicted: on the one hand, he says, he wants to do everything to stay on the pitch for as long as possible. On the other hand, he doesn’t want to suddenly find himself with teenage children and discover that he hasn’t raised them. So, he seeks mediation: “I will play as long as my commitment is compatible with that of the family, but if I were to realize that I was neglecting it I would leave everything.” Do we believe him?

The quarterback, the US elections, racism and weapons

Interesting to hear what the Chiefs quarterback says on very sensitive political and social issues. As is known, the team’s parade was marred by a shooting that left one victim and several injured. Mahomes paid 50 thousand dollars to help those in need of treatment but did not want to (yet) sign up to a campaign against the use of weapons for citizens: “I am researching myself, I want to study the topic in depth, I don’t want to speak without knowing everything, but it is certain that these situations must end”, he was a bit confused. Ditto on a possible indication of voting in the next American elections: “I don’t intend to pressure anyone to vote for a certain president rather than another. I want people to use their voices and express themselves to whoever they believe. I want them to do their research and then decide.” However, the position that the qb took against the rampant racism and the violent actions of the police against African-Americans was clear: he signed a document, together with the vast majority of the players, in which he spared no criticism, without citing it, of the NFL which in some way had censored the protests by athletes with the famous knee on the ground, inaugurated by another role colleague, Colin Kaepernick. He literally disappeared from the radar of every team after (precisely) the kneeling which, despite this sort of censorship, made history.

The latest feat

Time obviously also focuses on the latest feat: the Super Bowl comeback win over the San Francisco 49ers at the end of a very difficult season also marked by several defeats and a crisis of results that coincided with Christmas. Then the gradual and unstoppable ascent with the quarterback who recovered a perfect nervous balance and managed not to make the sensational errors of his receivers weigh on him “who dropped the ball too often and nullified his throws”, underlines the magazine, certainly not he, always publicly ready to defend his teammates. A fundamental quality for those who work as quarterbacks and must have charisma and leadership. Thus he rebuilt a winning mentality among his colleagues and the team rallied around him.

Compliments of Joe Montana

For the third time, therefore, Mahomes rose against the hostile current with his Chiefs in the game of his life, the Super Bowl, and then raised the trophy named after Vince Lombardi. “He’s a player who enjoys the moment”, the great Joe Montana tries to explain the mentality of a winning QB, who built his reputation by keeping calm when everything around him was collapsing and leading incredible comebacks, in circumstances that were to say the least frenetic. “You know it’s not the truth to pretend nothing happened, but he (and Joe Cool was like that too, ed.) plays as if it means nothing. He just lets the game go. He is himself in those moments. That’s what you want in a quarterback.”

In the minds of the quarterbacks who have won everything works like this… Great, right?