Throughout the career of Kansas City Chiefs starting quarterback Patrick Mahomes, he has looked the part of Superman in many ways, but seeing him participate during the team’s OTA practices this week somehow further strengthened the case for Kryptonian blood to be coursing through his veins.
Mahomes, who tore his ACL in his left knee during the Chiefs’ Week 15 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers last December, wore a black protective sleeve with a brace on his left leg while participating in drills.
Regardless of whether Mahomes is ultimately ready to start Week 1, he told reporters at his press conference on Thursday that he was trying to use his current limitations to his advantage.
“I told Coach Reid I think it’s helping me a little bit because I can’t move around,” Mahomes explained to reporters. “So, it’s kind of settling my feet down. It’s kind of like when I hurt my ankle, sometimes it’s like I can’t scramble, and I can’t do these things. So, it makes me sit in the pocket and go through the reads and do that stuff.”
Part of what makes Mahomes so dangerous is his ability to escape pressure and extend plays. But the downside of having that rare mobility is that quarterbacks can sometimes rely on it too heavily. Being forced to stay in the pocket gives Mahomes an opportunity to focus on his timing, his base, and working through concepts from start to finish.
Based on his comments, Mahomes seems to agree with this sentiment.
“I’m going to try to use it to my advantage,” Mahomes clarified. “It’s stuff that I can get better at, progressing through the entire concept and stuff like that. And I don’t have the ability to scramble. [If] you do that stuff right now, it should help me in those things, hopefully, whenever I get that ability back, I still will go through the progressions at a higher rate than I’ve done in the past.”
They say breaking points are opportunities for progress.
For most quarterbacks, losing the ability to move is a setback. Mahomes sees it as a classroom. Whether that translates into a sharper version of the NFL’s most gifted quarterback remains to be seen, but if he’s right, the road back from injury may end with a more complete player than the one who got hurt.
