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| ISBN-13: | 9781641252591 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Triumph Books |
| Publication date: | 12/11/2018 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 128 |
| Sales rank: | 637,974 |
| File size: | 24 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
About the Author
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CHAPTER 1
Athletic Destiny
Watching Patrick Mahomes II throw a football, it's unimaginable to believe he could have become anything other than an NFL quarterback.
He was all of five years old when he realized the extraordinary gift within his right arm. He played in a tee-ball league with kids two years older than him. One day a ground ball came his way at shortstop, and he moved to make the play.
"I threw the ball and hit the kid straight in the face and I realized I'm throwing a little harder than these other kids and I've got to kind of slow it down," Mahomes said. "That's probably when I realized it."
His mother, Randi, believed her son certainly predestined as a professional athlete, but until his junior year of high school in 2012, it seemed baseball would be his true calling.
"I knew he'd be a professional athlete when he was seven," Randi Mahomes told the Kansas City Star. "I'm serious. There was never a question to him, and I knew he had the talent."
Patrick doesn't remember his earliest moments of athleticism, but he's heard the tales from both his mother and father, Pat.
"They've told me stories. I can't remember all of it, but I mean, when I was younger I was always wanting to play sports, always wanting to be doing something. I remember my dad and my mom always telling me they'd be half asleep and I'd be sitting up and they would have to throw it back and I would get it and run around the room and get the ball, give it back to them and they'd throw it again, and that's just how it was when I was younger."
Young Patrick seemingly played every sport as a child, but baseball was his first love, and it makes sense. His father spent 11 seasons in the major leagues. He was in his fourth season with the Minnesota Twins when Randi gave birth to their first son on September 17, 1995. They named him Patrick Mahomes II.
As a kid, Patrick lived experiences of which most young people can only dream. He prowled the field during the World Series with Derek Jeter. He received batting tips from Alex Rodriguez. Patrick grew up around professional locker rooms, giving him critical insight into how good players become great.
"For me, my favorite player growing up was Alex Rodriguez," Patrick said. "And I remember when [my dad] was on the Rangers, playing with Alex, and how hard Alex worked. That really stuck with me. You see him hitting off the tee for hours. And you're like, 'Man, you are hitting home runs every single game. Why are you hitting on the tee for two or three hours?' That is just stuff you see and you remember as a kid and it sticks with you."
Many thought football was Patrick's third-best sport. He won the MaxPreps male athlete of the year award for the 2013–14 school year, more so for baseball and basketball than football. He averaged 19 points and eight rebounds per game during his senior basketball season, earning all-state honors and the All-East Texas Most Valuable Player Award.
Of course, he excelled in baseball, hitting nearly .500 his senior season as a center fielder and dominating on the mound with a fastball in the mid-90s. During a playoff game against Mount Pleasant, he fired a no-hitter, besting future first-round draft pick Michael Kopech, who made his major league debut with the Chicago White Sox in 2018. In a previous doubleheader, Patrick threw a no-hitter in the opener, then went 3-for-4 at the plate with a home run, a double, and three runs batted in during the nightcap. The Detroit Tigers selected him in the 37 round of the MLB draft.
But Patrick put up spectacular football stats as well. Whitehouse High School ran an air raid offense, so he had the opportunity to throw the ball with reckless abandon. He completed 287-of-495 passes as a senior for 4,619 yards and 50 touchdowns. He passed for 619 yards in a 65–60 loss in the state playoffs.
Rivals.com rated him as only the 49-best prospect in the state of Texas his senior year of high school, a run-of-the-mill, three-star, dual-threat quarterback. He didn't have many colleges coming out of the woodwork in recruiting him. Many thought he would choose baseball as a full-time sport and didn't love football as much. Texas recruited him as a safety, a thought which completely turned off Patrick.
His three-sport high school career also turned off college recruiters. Not only did coaches and recruiters believe him ticketed for baseball at either the college or professional level, he didn't play on the all-star circuits out of season, where players make their names. But Patrick preferred playing all three sports.
"Me, personally, as I look at this, the more sports you can play, I really think that helps in the transition into whatever sport you choose," Patrick said. "It is the mechanics of the body, the coordination, the balance, the quickness, they all interact with each other. It makes you a better player whatever sport you do choose."
On April 21, 2013, before his senior season at Whitehouse, Mahomes committed to play football at Texas Tech.
CHAPTER 2Texas Tech Raider & Choosing a New Path
Patrick Mahomes arrived at Texas Tech as the backup behind sophomore starter Davis Webb. But at one point his decision to become a Red Raider looked disastrous.
After he had committed to Texas Tech, true walk-on freshman Baker Mayfield won the starting job for the Red Raiders and turned in a dazzling season. He won the Big 12 Offensive Freshman of the Year Award, and suddenly it appeared Mahomes would arrive on campus buried as the No. 3 quarterback.
But a falling out between Mayfield and the Red Raiders coaching staff led to his transferring out of the program. That opened the door for Mahomes to claim the No. 2 spot.
Mahomes saw his first action in the fourth game of the season against No. 24 Oklahoma State, after a shoulder injury knocked Webb out of the game. Mahomes completed 2-of-5 passes for 40 yards with a touchdown and an interception in a 45–35 loss. He later saw mop-up duty in blowout losses to Kansas State (45–13) and TCU (82–27).
But Webb suffered a season-ending ankle injury against Texas on November 1, and Mahomes stepped in for good. He started the final three games of the season, including a 35–25 win at Iowa State in which he threw for 328 yards and four touchdowns. In a 56–30 season-ending loss to Baylor, Mahomes threw for a staggering 598 yards and six touchdowns.
After an uplifting freshman season in football, baseball season brought him back to earth. Balancing spring football and baseball proved difficult, forcing Mahomes to show up late for practices and miss games. He played just three games for the Red Raiders on the diamond, striking out once in two plate appearances. He made a single appearance out of the bullpen as a pitcher, walking two batters and hitting another while allowing three earned runs without recording an out.
His twin passions of football and baseball continued to pull him in different directions, but his sophomore campaign at quarterback made the decision much easier.
Texas Tech finished 7–6 his sophomore season with an appearance in the Texas Bowl against LSU. Mahomes played well, completing 64 percent of his passes and averaging 357.9 yards per game. He tossed 36 touchdowns against only 15 interceptions, and the future for Red Raiders football appeared bright.
The success of his sophomore season was enough for him to call it a career in baseball. He announced he would leave the Texas Tech baseball squad to focus on his junior season in football.
"Baseball, I felt like I almost peaked," Mahomes told the Kansas City Star. "I felt like I knew everything about baseball. In football, I'm still learning something every single day."
When the young Mahomes decided to walk away from baseball and commit to football full time, it did not lead to any disappointment from his father, the former pitcher.
"No, he wasn't [mad] at all," Mahomes said. "My mom and my dad have been great about just really being open minded about whatever I do. Whatever you do, they say, just be the best you can be at it. And so they've always left it up to me and never been disappointed in anything."
Indeed, his father feels nothing but pride for what his son accomplished on the football field.
"I always tell him before every game how proud I am of him and remind him of what my dad, Johnny Mahomes, used to tell me: 'You'll always be successful if you perform to the limits of your ability,'" Pat Mahomes said.
Breakout Season
Texas Tech entered the 2016 season with rosy expectations fueled by the development of Mahomes. The Big 12 media poll picked the Red Raiders to finish sixth in the conference, but the margin was close, along with No. 4 Baylor and No. 5 Texas. With a little bit of luck, the Red Raiders might surprise a few teams along the way.
Mahomes and his teammates indeed had plenty of luck, but almost all of it was bad.
Texas Tech cruised through its season opener against Stephen F. Austin 69–17, with Mahomes throwing for 483 yards and four touchdowns before giving way to Nic Shimonek in the second half. But Week 2's trip to Arizona State revealed what promised to haunt the Red Raiders all season — a defense unable to stop almost anyone. The Sun Devils outraced Tech 68–55. Mahomes threw for 540 yards and five touchdowns with two interceptions.
Mahomes suffered the first of two injuries that defined his junior season on September 29, 2016, against the Kansas Jayhawks. The Red Raiders led 28–19 midway through the third quarter when Mahomes scrambled for a 32-yard gain. The quarterback broke a tackle near the end of the run, but Jayhawks defensive end Isaiah Bean caught up with the play from behind and drove Mahomes hard to the ground. He remained on the field for an extended period as trainers tended to his right throwing shoulder.
Mahomes suffered a grade 2 AC joint sprain in his shoulder. The injury didn't require surgery, but he reportedly needed four to six weeks to recover. Yet 10 days later, Mahomes started for the Red Raiders, completing 45-of-62 passes for 504 yards and two touchdowns in a 44–38 loss to Kansas State. Mahomes didn't miss a single game his junior season, gritting through the injury the last eight weeks of the season.
Texas Tech continued its roller coaster ride, lighting up both sides of the scoreboard wherever they went. Mahomes also continued putting up big numbers, including 470 yards and five touchdowns against Louisiana Tech and 504 yards and two touchdowns in a loss at Kansas State.
The crowning moment in the college career of Mahomes came in a wild shootout against Oklahoma and his former teammate, Baker Mayfield. The two teams ran up and down the field against each other. Oklahoma came out on top 66–59, but Mahomes ended up in the record books. He set Football Bowl Subdivision and Big 12 records with 819 yards of offense and matched the FBS record with 734 passing yards. He completed 52 of a staggering 88 attempts with five touchdowns, and added 85 yards rushing and two touchdowns on the ground.
"It was a game where there was a lot of talented people on the field," Mahomes said while reflecting on the game two years later. "It was kind of one of those Big 12 shootouts but if you look at the rosters there's a lot of players that are in the NFL now, and just being able to be a part of something like that — I mean, I wish we would have won — but it was awesome just to be a part of it."
Mahomes joked that only having experience as a pitcher allowed him to throw 88 passes in a game.
"I didn't know I had thrown that many times," he said. "I remember one of my buddies who was my roommate my freshman year of college, he came up to me the last drive and was like, 'You have 77 pass attempts right now.' I was like, 'Man that's a lot of passes.' It was an awesome atmosphere we had at Tech and I'm upset we didn't come out with the win."
The Red Raiders finished their season at 5–7, meaning they would not even play in a bowl game in a season that began with dreams of vying for a conference title. But Mahomes finished with huge numbers, leading the nation with 5,052 yards through the air while completing 66 percent of his passes and throwing for 41 touchdowns against just 10 interceptions. He received secondteam All-Big 12 honors and won the Sammy Baugh Award as the nation's top quarterback. He was also a finalist for the Manning and Johnny Unitas Golden Arm awards for quarterbacks.
The big numbers and the injuries made a tough decision easier. On January 3, 2017, Mahomes declared he would forego his senior season at Texas Tech and enter his name in the 2017 NFL draft.
CHAPTER 3The Reinvention of a Quarterback
With the help of his godfather, LaTroy Hawkins, Patrick Mahomes went shopping for an agent. He settled on the duo of Leigh Steinberg and Chris Cabott.
Steinberg carries a legendary reputation in the agent game. He's negotiated more than $3 billion in contracts for players. Eight overall No. 1 NFL draft picks have been represented by Steinberg, and he's helped usher more than 60 players into first-round selections.
His ties to Kansas City go all the way back to the 1977 draft, when he represented California and Long Beach State running back Mark Bailey, a fourth-round selection of the Chiefs. He also represented many other Kansas City players over the years, including Hall of Fame linebacker Derrick Thomas and Hall of Fame class of 2018 member Tony Gonzalez. The relationship goes back many years between the agent and the Hunt family, including Chiefs founder Lamar and his son Clark, the current chairman and CEO of the club.
"Lamar and I were friends for a long time and I first met Clark when he was sort of young," Steinberg said.
Steinberg had a career renaissance in the last few seasons before signing Mahomes. He represented Memphis quarterback Paxton Lynch the year before, navigating him to a first-round selection by the Denver Broncos.
Steinberg and Cabott knew they faced a major hurdle with NFL front offices in marketing their new client. Mahomes ran an air raid offense at Texas Tech. The air raid is a variation of the spread offense, utilizing four wide receivers and one running back. The quarterback lines up in a shotgun formation with five offensive linemen split about a yard apart from one another. Most running plays come from audibles in a passing formation based on the defensive alignment. It also includes a no-huddle option, which allows the offense to keep a defense off balance while trying to wear it down physically. Quick, short routes keep the defense from blitzing too much, while the spread formations create wide-open passing lanes for the quarterback.
NFL general managers typically take a dim view of spread offenses in general and the air raid in particular. It didn't help that few air raid quarterbacks had achieved much NFL success. Kentucky's Tim Couch went No. 1 overall to the Cleveland Browns in 1999 and is widely considered a bust. Many air raid quarterbacks put up staggering college numbers, but few achieved any NFL success. Case Keenum from Houston and Nick Foles of Arizona achieved the most professional successful after college careers in the air raid.
"For some people, the fact that a player plays in a spread is about enough to eliminate him as a top quarterback prospect," Steinberg said. "But it's really not fair because most offenses in college football are not pro set."
Steinberg knew the "system quarterback" tag would be the biggest criticism of Mahomes, and he planned to face the issue head on.
"If the knock against any quarterback coming out of a spread is going to be how they adapt to the three-, five-, and seven-step drop and taking the ball under center," Steinberg said, "the goal in scouting was to take that on directly and immerse Patrick in pro technology and in taking snap after snap under center and working on those mechanics and being able to look past the system in college to a projection of how he would play over the next 10 to 15 years for a pro team."
Steinberg recruited Mike Sheppard to help coach Mahomes through the draft process. The 65-year-old Sheppard spent nearly 40 seasons as an offensive coach in college and the NFL, including stints as quarterbacks coach for the Seattle Seahawks and New Orleans Saints.
The preparation for Mahomes started with training.
"Whatever the defects were seen in Patrick's game, you start with the fact he's got an extraordinary mind and the ability to grasp and remember and then move on to his stellar work ethic," Steinberg said. "He will dedicate himself to making that conversion to mastering three-, five-, seven-step drops, mastering taking the ball under center."
The second step was showcasing for NFL general managers and scouts his ability to not just throw the football but show them his knowledge and understanding of the game in one-on-one interviews.
"I don't think I've ever had any more ready, willing, and able client than Patrick in this draft system," Steinberg said. "He was seen by 19 teams personally, either on campus in one-on-one workouts and dinners or at their facility. That's an extraordinary number."
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Patrick Mahomes: Showtime"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Triumph Books LLC.
Excerpted by permission of Triumph Books LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Athletic Destiny,
Texas Tech Raider & Choosing a New Path,
The Reinvention of a Quarterback,
When Andy Met Patrick,
Draft Day 2017,
Building the Perfect Quarterback,
Alex and Patrick,
Auditioning for the Job,
Taking Over,
Just One of the Guys,
Showtime Arrives,
Mahomes Mania,
Mile High Magician,
Face of an Angel, Voice of a Frog,
Chasing History,
No Flash in the Pan,
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