Patrick Mahomes – A Chief among Men

Patrick Mahomes II has taken the NFL by storm in the last couple of seasons.

A first round draft pick in the 2017 draft for the Kansas City Chiefs, Mahomes wasn’t thrown into the fore immediately. Instead he spent most of his opening season as the Chiefs’ backup, before coming in for the final game of the regular season. Kansas City had already secured a play-off spot and thought they would see what their new rookie was capable of. Mahomes led the team to a 27-23 victory and NFL fans caught their first glimpse of an exciting future.

Mahomes’ second season was as emphatic a breakout as the NFL has seen for some time. In his first game, he was named AFC Offensive Player of the Week. His season went from strength to strength and the Chiefs stormed into the play-offs and through to the Conference Finals, where they lost in overtime to the New England Patriots, who would go on to win the Super Bowl.

Over the course of the season, Mahomes broke numerous records and was named to the 2019 Pro Bowl, where he was named First Team All–Pro. Most impressively of all, however, he was named the NFL MVP, the first ever winner for the Chiefs.

However, this article is not just to extol the virtues of the most exciting quarterback in the NFL. Mahomes took a different path to one many sport stars take when it comes to one of our specialist subjects, sponsorship.

Currently, the Chief is one of the most marketable men in the NFL, and has deals with the likes of Adidas, Bose headphones, Oakley, and Hunt’s ketchup (he’s a big fan…), but these have only come in in the last season. At the end of his second season in the league, the one at the end of which he was named the Most Valuable Player, Mahomes had 0 endorsement deals.

This was because his agent, Leigh Steinberg, made an incredibly bold decision in this day and age – to keep him out of the spotlight away from the pitch until he became the best player he could be. Throughout his MVP-winning season, Mahomes did not have the pressures of having to keep appointments with sponsors, or worry about hitting yardage to earn endorsement bonuses. Instead, he could focus on what he and his agent considered to be the most important thing – football.

“We’re being very, very careful to allow this season to proceed without his face on every billboard,” Mahomes’ agent said during his breakout season. “Without it creating a situation where he throws the first interception and people are saying, ‘Well, why’s he on every billboard?’”

The Mahomes-led Chiefs line up against the San Francisco 49ers in this weekend’s Super Bowl LIV, and although the 49ers had the better regular season record, the Chiefs may well go into the match as favourites. In a one-off match, can anyone stop the offensive juggernaut that Mahomes leads?

We are excited to see on Sunday!