Friend-of-the-site Terez Paylor of Yahoo! Sports posted a new Patrick Mahomes profile on Monday, detailing the Kansas City Chiefs quarterback’s offseason journey to build his brand and get in better shape (I strongly recommend you read the full piece here).
“For me, offseason-training wise, it’s all about trying to define [my body]… trying to make sure I’m in the best shape possible, nutritionally and physically and mentally,” Mahomes said, via Paylor. “So the big thing for me this offseason going in was, I wanted to gain muscle but at the same time, cut weight. Kind of a mixture of both.”
Mahomes added he was 12 percent body fat after Chiefs training camp last year, but he intends to improve upon that heading into 2019.
“My goal is to be in the single digits,” he added, “so I’m gonna try to get as low as I possibly can while still being healthy and still having the body to be able to take a full season.”
Mahomes’ desire to improve this offseason has been fascinating to watch, given just how historic his first season as a starter was in 2018. Chiefs head coach Andy Reid first mentioned his young quarterback’s initial step to improvement — video cut-ups of things to work on — in an interview with NFL Network back in early March.
“They’re little things,” Reid said. “I’m not going to throw them out there because he’ll get destroyed. He’ll take these cut-ups that we put together. He’s going to look at them and go, ‘Oh my gosh. I could have been so much better right here,’ whether it’s footwork or arm angle or trusting his O-line in a situation, whatever it might be, whatever that thing is, he’ll go back and he’ll look at those and then you see another jump. He’ll handle that the right way. Not everybody does that. Not everybody handles that second year the right way.”
Throughout the course of interviews this offseason, we’ve learned that Mahomes’ footwork and pocket presence, plus trusting Reid’s play design have been the keys for him this offseason.
“I learned that there is still a ton that I need to improve on,” Mahomes said in May. “I made a lot of plays happen off-script last year, but there were times when I’d try to make those plays happen instead of just taking the easy completion for a first down. I have to keep finding that line between trying to make the big play happen and when I should just take the easy completion, move the chains, keep the offense on the field and keep rolling down the field. That is stuff that I have to keep working on every single year and he really opened my eyes to that.”
In 2018, Mahomes made history by becoming just the third player in NFL history to throw for at least 50 touchdowns in one season. He added more than 5,000 yards and pushed the Chiefs further than they have reached since Reid’s tenure in Kansas City began in 2013.
He took those results and rather than being satisfied, opted to get in better shape and work on his technique this offseason.
And analysts still insist the Los Angeles Chargers the “team to beat” in the AFC West.
