Patrick Mahomes’ first four years as an NFL starting quarterback have been historic.
With two Super Bowl appearances, one Super Bowl win, four straight division titles and an NFL MVP award, Mahomes is in a class by himself. But he’s also willing to learn. In fact, he demands it.
Coming off a stunning overtime loss to Cincinnati in the AFC Championship game — which the Chiefs led 21-10 at halftime — Mahomes is using the defeat as motivation to improve his own play in 2022.
“That second half, I didn’t play really good football at all,” Mahomes said after the team wrapped mandatory minicamp. “Probably my worst playoff football that I’ve played. So just trying to use that as a learning thing that whenever I’m struggling or the team’s struggling just find ways to get positive plays because when you have a lead like that you don’t want to lose the lead.
“We played such a great first half, and even if we weren’t getting what we wanted in the second half I have to be better at taking what’s there and putting some type of points on the board to come away and get to the Super Bowl.”
While the Chiefs don’t officially reconvene until the first day of training camp on July 27 in St. Joe, Mo., several players will again travel to Texas for a series of workouts with Mahomes before then, just like they did early in the offseason.
“We’ll have some guys down there,” Mahomes said. “Lucky enough, some of those guys already live in Texas and we’ll be working out and throwing. You don’t want to do too much going into training camp but just trying to keep everything fresh, keep everybody working. We’ll have some dates down there, and I’m sure some guys will come through.”
The early practice sessions proved beneficial during OTAs and minicamp. And coach Andy Reid is hoping for similar results again come training camp.
“They handled it the right way,” Reid said. “They got work done because when they came back, they were in good shape. And they also had the routes down, which helped. So I think as much time as they can get together, they do.”
Last offseason, Mahomes had surgery after the Super Bowl to repair a nagging turf toe injury. This offseason, however, Mahomes didn’t have any surgeries and is at full health. Now he’s hoping to build off a successful offseason and carry that into the months ahead.
“The best thing about it is when you come off an injury, you try to stay in shape,” Mahomes said. “You try to ride the bike or whatever you can. Especially with a foot injury, it’s hard to get that running in, that sprinting in.
“And I feel like now I’m at a better point than I was last year as far as explosiveness and condition-wise. So that’s helped out a lot and hopefully I can keep that momentum going forward into the season.”