To the victor go the spoils, they say. Unfortunately, so too does resentment. Now that he’s the most premier passer in the National Football League, Patrick Mahomes is beginning to learn this aspect of winning the hard way.
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Having won three Super Bowls in his first seven years as a starter, the pride and joy of the Kansas City Chiefs has had an unprecedented start to his career. But that’s coming at the chagrin of the rest of the league.
Much like Tom Brady or LeBron James, he’s officially become the “villain” of the NFL. “People start to turn on you,” said Mahomes. And he seems to be okay with that tag.
“You kind of become this villain, but for me, it’s just about playing the game the right way,” Mahomes added during his latest interview with ESPN.
According to Fox Sports’ Henry McKenna, it’s not Mahomes himself that has changed, but rather the perception of him. Success for one means failure for another, and in the eyes of McKenna, the soon-to-be 30-year-old signal caller is experiencing nothing more than the latest iteration of the same narrative that has been told countless times throughout the history of organized sports.
Likening him to everyone from Brady and James to the Alabama Crimson Tide football program and even Michael Jordan, McKenna elaborated on this phenomenon. “At the beginning of their run, they were one thing. And even as they stayed the same, the perception of them evolved,” he said.
“They seemed like another. Like a villain. When someone ascends into greatness, the haters come out of the woodwork. And while Mahomes has long been a hero — the Iron Man of the NFL — he’s headed into his villain phase. Perhaps the Doctor Doom,” added McKenna.
Perhaps Brady is the perfect comparison for Mahomes at this point, even though the Chiefs star is four Super Bowls short. Both were unpopular quarterback options who spent the beginning of their careers on the bench before becoming the face of the league.
Most were indifferent to Brady in the early days of his career. He was nothing more than the product of the next-man-up system that the NFL has in place. But after he won his first Super Bowl as a sophomore, expectations mounted.
The only problem was that Brady began to shatter those expectations, making fools of both defenders and analysts alike. By the time he captured his third Lombardi trophy, fans were beginning to grow tired of seeing the Patriots in the Super Bowl almost every year.
Once Brady returned to those winning ways in 2014, those old expectations had transformed into outright complaints and criticisms. Brady wasn’t an underdog anymore. He was the establishment. And there are a few things that Americans hate more than an authority figure.
Unfortunately for Mahomes, he seems destined to travel down that same path. He’s no longer a kid from Texas; he’s the face of the NFL. And whether they like it or not, fans will have to contend with the fact that their boos will only serve to make Mahomes that much stronger.
