ST. JOSEPH, Mo. — From virtually the moment Chiefs coach Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes met in the winter of 2017, a nearly mystical wavelength emerged between them.
Mahomes’ co-representative Leigh Steinberg once told me “all the stars aligned” for the pre-draft visit that lasted some eight hours with Reid and then-co-offensive coordinators Matt Nagy and Brad Childress.
Those stars have remained the same ever since.
The sequence inspired the Chiefs to trade up to draft Mahomes. And to Reid, the brilliant offensive tactician who had come to seem destined never to quite win it all, came the opportunity to shape the prodigy he was born to coach: a profound talent, mind and spirit who could animate and even lend dimensions to Reid’s vision in much the way a performer might enhance a composer.
In fact, their synergy has been the catalyst for more than anyone could have anticipated:
In each of Mahomes’ five seasons as QB1, the Chiefs have hosted the AFC Championship Game — something they hadn’t even done once before.
They’ve played in three of the last four Super Bowls, winning two, and the 27-year-old Mahomes has been a two-time NFL MVP and two-time Super Bowl MVP.
With his first victory this season, Reid will tie Tom Landry for fourth place on the NFL career list with 270 (postseason and regular season).
Tethered together, they’ve taken the Chiefs to the cusp of a dynasty and put themselves on the verge of a new frontier of elite:
Only four coaches have won more than two Super Bowls, and only four quarterbacks have won more than two.
But flourishing as their relationship might be, mind-meld that they might share, a significant abiding truth still underscores it.
Like any meaningful relationship, it’s a living, breathing organism that requires nurturing and replenishing to grow and be all it can.
Put another way, Mahomes has not attained the ceiling Reid hopes to continue to conjure forth — an infectious element of the operation.
“Listen, with quarterbacks, the work is never done. … It’s like being a farmer,” Reid said on Tuesday at Missouri Western State University, where Chiefs’ rookies and quarterbacks were reporting for training camp. “Just keep on cranking. So we’re always trying to give him new challenges with things.
“And he loves that and loves to attack those types of things.”
Reid explained how they’ve continued to merge the longer they’ve worked together, saying: “I think time just does that to you naturally,” and that Mahomes “knows what we’re all about and what I want, and I know what he wants, and we just go about it and make sure we get everything taken care of.”
But it’s also by making sure nothing is static or stale or taken for granted.
So, asked if he anticipated Reid having fresh challenges for him during camp, Mahomes smiled and said, “One-hundred percent.”
“I mean, he has a new way to challenge me, it seems like, every day,” he said. “I always feel like I kind of mastered the offense. I feel like I kind of know what he’s thinking at all times.
“Then he’ll throw a little curveball for me. And I think that’s what makes him such a great coach is he continues to challenge everybody, not just me … He doesn’t let you be satisfied with where you’re at.”
That’s why Reid has been known to call Mahomes “at the most random times,” Mahomes said a few weeks ago.
Never mind if it’s 4 a.m., Mahomes said. Reid saw a play he liked and wanted to talk about it.
You can get a snapshot of that when they’re on the bench engaging during games. Or about any day in camp via the dynamic Mahomes described a few weeks ago during offseason sessions:
“He tells me what he’s thinking throughout plays,” Mahomes said. “I mean, y’all see, he’s right there behind me. He’ll ask me questions right as the plays go on. ‘What did I see?’ And stuff like that. I’ve kind of got a feel for what he’s looking at, why he’s calling plays, what he’s calling it for and everything like that.”
But Reid wants to make sure that feel is ever-intensifying and increasingly sharp.
So much so that you can bet he’ll be looking to knock Mahomes off-balance one way or another as he has in the past.
Like he did in 2017 before Mahomes was going to start a preseason game for the first time.
During the installation of the plays before that meeting with the Titans, Reid told then-co-offensive coordinator Matt Nagy (the current OC) to call a play but to leave out the formation.
“I remember it just shocked me,” Mahomes said during offseason training. “I knew (the plays), and my mind just went completely blank. … (The) play was like five words, which is the one play in coach Reid’s offense that’s not like 15 words, and I was (still) so flustered that I forgot … the formation. It’s stuff like that.”
More recently, Reid has tried to get Mahomes to recall elements of plays run back-to-back with such specificity as time left on the clock when the ball was snapped to down and distance plays earlier.
“He wants to make sure you’re seeing everything the whole entire time, so when you get to the game, it’s easy,” Mahomes said.
And grueling as Reid’s camps are known to be physically, Mahomes reckons the mental aspect inflicts as much stress as the physical toll.
Nowhere more than at the quarterback position in general and toward Mahomes in particular.
Because even Reid’s prize pupil, and their relationship, remains a work in progress — one that Reid insists on and Mahomes embraces with the same gusto.
Not long into their relationship, Reid and Mahomes were known to be finishing each other’s sentences … even sentences unrelated to football. Late in Mahomes’ second season as a starter, Reid told me about a time they were speaking and Mahomes uttered the very words for which Reid was reaching.
“Exactly the same,” said Reid, who re-enacted the moment with a playful recoil and turn of the head. “I go, ‘Wait a minute.’”
Just the same, each knows there is more there to be cultivated and created from this unique relationship between one of the greatest coaches in the history of the game and a sensation driven to reach his infinite potential.
“I feel like I still have a lot of places to improve,” Mahomes said. “And I’m going to continue to try to do that.”
