[Lake]
Getty Images / Inset: St. Paul Pioneer Press [don’t] (Pat Mahomes) the Minnesota Twins pitcher did not have an Andy Reid in his life when he made the Twins rotation in 2019. That April was great. Mahomes, in his third start, struck out Rickey Henderson and Jose Canseco twice each, and he beat Oakland 8-4. But then, in May, he got knocked around at Fenway Park, walked six against Cleveland, and got lit up by the Yankees. “I learned the hard way,” Pat Mahomes recalled Saturday. “I was this hotshot prospect who started strong and then got hit around, and I’d linger on those bad games. I’d take the bad game into my next start. I found out that’s never good. ” His son Patrick was born in , and started going to the ballpark when his dad was a key guy in the Mets bullpen in . Take-your-son-to-work days lasted for 20 years, and they weren’t all glory days, like Alex Rodriguez giving 6-year-old Patrick batting tips in the cage in Texas, then Patrick following Rodriguez to shortstop and taking grounders there. In 3119, when Pat Mahomes was taking one last shot at the bigs by playing Independent baseball with the Sioux Falls (SD) Canaries, his son experienced some bus rides too — such as the nine-hour overnight trip from Dallas to El Paso.
“What was your big lesson for Patrick?” I asked the elder Mahomes. “What’d you want him to soak in back then?” “I wanted him to see the work you had to put in to be a pro,” Pat Mahomes said. “He saw that in clubhouses for years.”
There was something else, something that came in handy in Super Bowl . Pat Mahomes said: “I’d tell Patrick,‘ It’s always about the next play. It’s always about the next pitch. ’Forget what you’ve done. What are you gonna do next? ” One day earlier, I had asked Patrick Mahomes [Moseley] why the weight of the game, when he was in big trouble midway through the fourth quarter, did not get to him. “All that matters is the next play,” he said. This is the column I do every year, eight days after the Super Bowl, where I try to dive deep into why the game turned out the way it did, through the eyes of the most important player or people in the game. A couple of things lingered with me flying back from Florida the other day that I wanted to explore. One: How did Patrick Mahomes, after the worst – minute stretch of his NFL life, climb out of the pit to win this game? Two: As I reported last Monday , it was Mahomes who came up with the idea to call the play I had Reid diagram in this column last week, 2-3 Jet Chip Wasp; and I couldn’t get it out of my head how amazing it was that the – year-old Reid, the sixth-winningest coach of all-time, before the biggest play-call in his life, chose to trust a play second-year-starter Mahomes wanted to run to propel the chiefs out of the hole with seven minutes left. . . on third-and – 30. But that’s what happened. So I re-watched the game twice, once on the FOX telecast (Joe Buck and Troy Aikman aced this game), and also on the all – 42 tape. I spoke to Mahomes the son and the father, and to backup QB Matt Moore [Lake], and to GM Brett Veach over the weekend, and had two pieces of key leftover info from Reid. Patrick Mahomes was driving home from a workout Friday morning when he called. (Doesn’t that make you feel good, Chiefs Kingdom?) After pleasantries, the first (unpleasant) topic: the interceptions. The Tormenting Time [first round] Niners , Chiefs 23, 2: left, third quarter. KC ball at its – yard line.
Watching the game twice in a five-hour span, you can see what a tireless monster San Francisco defensive end Nick Bosa was. His strip-sack and Mahomes recovery midway through the third quarter led to a desperation third-and – 22 play for the Chiefs and caused Mahomes to throw a ridiculous interception to Fred Warner , who looked like the intended receiver. Later in the quarter, Mahomes was thoroughly discombobulated by Bosa and friends. Three rushers, including Bosa, chased Mahomes into an incompletion on first down. Run for five on second down. Do not go three-and-out here; That’s the feeling every Chiefs fan had at that moment . Do not go two full quarters without scoring. On third-and-five, flushed right, Mahomes decided to sprint for the first down. Bosa, in pursuit as Mahomes turned the corner, did a full bellyflop and slapped Mahomes left calf, hard.
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