Originally Posted by :
When a coach realizes his quarterback could be the greatest of all time, it should be a feeling of pure joy, right?
Not in the case of the Kansas City Chiefs' Patrick Mahomes.
"It makes it so much more stressful," Chiefs passing game coordinator Joe Bleymaier told ESPN on Wednesday of Super Bowl week. "You feel the burden as a coach and as you're putting a game plan together to not waste his abilities. To not go through a season where you don't give him the opportunity. To not screw it up as the coaching staff. So rather than feeling like this just unbridled excitement that we could do anything, it's actually more like a terror, like we cannot be the reason that we screwed this guy up or this team up."
Every week when Bleymaier puts together the game plan with coach Andy Reid, offensive coordinator Matt Nagy and the Chiefs staff, he wonders, "Are we utilizing him the best? Are we giving him the stuff that he needs? It's just constantly second-guessing ourselves just so that he has everything he needs to go be himself."
That burden weighed heavily on many of the Chiefs' players after a 40-22 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles in the silent and stuffy Super Bowl LIX postgame locker room Sunday night. Mahomes, who threw a pick-six in the first half, told the players at halftime that he needed to play better, according to Leo Chenal. The linebacker said he could hear in Mahomes' voice how much he was hurting by not playing up to his own standard.
"He demanded better of himself. And guys all around him were like, 'We need to be better for you, too, Patrick,'" Chenal said.
But the motivation of supporting a dynasty-building quarterback wasn't enough to overcome a 24-0 first-half deficit. The Chiefs fell short of making NFL history with a third straight title and wallowed in the shock of it.
Receiver DeAndre Hopkins slouched with his eyes closed as he rode down the concourse in a golf cart. Tight end Travis Kelce spoke to reporters for a quick two minutes before turning his back. Receivers JuJu Smith-Schuster and Hollywood Brown sat facing their lockers with their heads bowed, their upper bodies fully bent in half. Offensive lineman Joe Thuney wiped blood off his right calf.
As soon as Mahomes said it out loud last season after the Chiefs' second consecutive Super Bowl win -- "No one's ever got three. I want to go back-to-back-to-back," the NFL Films crew caught him saying to Chris Jones -- a three-peat seemed inevitable. But even the greatest quarterback can be rendered powerless when under siege by the league's deepest pass rush.
Kansas City's offensive line had held together until the most important game, when it faced the opponent whose roster is built around offensive and defensive line play. Thuney, one of the best guards in football, had filled in nobly at left tackle since Week 15, playing the role because Kansas City's younger tackles needed more time to develop. When Reid suggested moving the All-Pro left guard over to left tackle, offensive line coach Andy Heck wasn't sold on the idea. They'd be sacrificing on the interior and asking Thuney to do a very different job, out in space battling the best edge rushers.
CHIEFS COACHES SAID Mahomes never talked about the three-peat in a team setting, but away from the Chiefs facility, in sessions with his personal trainer, Bobby Stroupe, Mahomes did voice the prospect of a three-peat multiple times. "I get to hear unfiltered Patrick every Monday," Stroupe said during Super Bowl week.
Stroupe has trained Mahomes since the quarterback was 10 years old, and typically Stroupe plays the role of the antagonizer. Remember Burrowhead. Don't forget how the Bengals made you feel.
"Whatever is getting to him, that's what I'm going to talk about when the workout is tough," Stroupe said.
Like the time during the 2022 postseason, before the Chiefs won their first of back-to-back titles, when Mahomes had a severe high ankle sprain and Stroupe said the quarterback was in excruciating pain and close to throwing up while he had him farmer-carry a 400-pound hex weight bar.
But that negative bulletin-board material felt "old hat" this year, Stroupe said. "Whatever the latest Bengal is saying, we're just kind of over it. But you've got to grip something."
So Mahomes gripped something weightier and more solid than a flimsy insult. Stroupe said Mahomes started talking about his goal of winning three straight during OTAs this past offseason. And specifically the idea of the three-peat as a legacy.
"Everybody wants to win a Super Bowl when they get to it," Stroupe said last week. "But this one, this means something, and it means something that for him is better than anything individual. I think he wants more than anything for this team to be known as the best team of all time.
"When I'm whooping his ass, that's the thing he's been going to. This year, it shifted pretty quick to 'We got a chance of legacy here with this team.'"
Stroupe said Mahomes told him at one of his last workouts during the bye week before the Super Bowl that because no other NFL team had completed a three-peat, doing so would put the Chiefs on a higher tier of dynasty.
In past years, Stroupe finished a workout with Mahomes by reminding him to stay open-minded to the result, with the goal of playing his best football. Not this year.
"For him to bring [the three-peat] up, it's just really uncommon for him," Stroupe said. "It was just a different response."
Originally Posted by SHOWTIME:
According to his wikipedia page, Bleymaier is a former college teammate of Brett Veach. So the organizaiton has entrusted the super bowl game plan to two of Veach's buddies...
Originally Posted by SHOWTIME:
According to his wikipedia page, Bleymaier is a former college teammate of Brett Veach. So the organizaiton has entrusted the super bowl game plan to two of Veach's buddies...
Originally Posted by SHOWTIME:
According to his wikipedia page, Bleymaier is a former college teammate of Brett Veach. So the organizaiton has entrusted the super bowl game plan to two of Veach's buddies...
It sounds to me that the OC and his coaches were gutless wonders, not wanting to "harm" Pat. They are the 2nd biggest reason the offense tanked and Mahomes has regressed. (The first being the blocking)
Originally Posted by RunKC:
Hearing the story of Mahomes apologizing to the team at halftime is definitely gut wrenching
No doubt. He’s 29, that ws a lot of pressure on him. Not just from the defense, but the gravity of the situation. He’s Superman to us, but he’s still human. You could see how heartbroken he was on the sidelines. Heard he went out, did the whole press conference, and answered every question before leaving.
The guy is incredible, but stuff like that hurts to hear. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Coochie liquor:
No doubt. He’s 29, that ws a lot of pressure on him. Not just from the defense, but the gravity of the situation. He’s Superman to us, but he’s still human. You could see how heartbroken he was on the sidelines. Heard he went out, did the whole press conference, and answered every question before leaving.
The guy is incredible, but stuff like that hurts to hear.
He’s my hero.
It sounds embarrassing to say that as a grown man about another grown man, but he’s my favorite athlete ever. Albert Pujols was that for a long time and I never thought anyone could pass him, but Mahomes has done it. It never gets old watching him play.
I criticize him sometimes when he’s not playing well but it’s only because I know how great he is and I want to see that greatness at all times and see him get the recognition he deserves. I’ll ride with him until the day he’s no longer a Chief and if, god forbid, he ever goes to another team that’ll become my second favorite team until he retires.
I can’t thank him enough for the memories he’s already given me. Hopefully he’ll give us all many more over the next decade. [Reply]
It sounds embarrassing to say that as a grown man about another grown man, but he’s my favorite athlete ever. Albert Pujols was that for a long time ad I never thought anyone could pass him, but Mahomes has done it. It never gets old watching him play.
I criticize him sometimes when he’s not playing well but it’s only because I know how great he is and I want to see that greatness at all times and see him get the recognition he deserves. I’ll ride with him until the day he’s no longer a Chief and if, god forbid, he ever goes to another team that’ll become my second favorite team until he retires.
I can’t thank him enough for the memories he’s already given me. Hopefully he’ll give us all many more over the next decade.
That's why these gut punches suck so hard.
The man has given us everything we ever dreamed of, and now everyone is disrespecting him.
It really fucking hurts.
But it's worth it, if the payoff is what we have gotten and will get again. [Reply]
All this criticism of Mahomes was leveled against Brady too after he lost 2 super bowls to the Giants. They said he'd never be Montana because he had 2 losses, but he changed the narrative with 4 more super bowl wins. Mahomes can do that and change people's perception of him. But it's up to him. [Reply]
