Patrick Mahomes is already back to work this offseason

Patrick Mahomes’ trainer Bobby Stroupe dropped a story on Instagram of the All-World quarterback already grinding after the Chiefs’ Super Bowl 57 victory.

It had been nine days since the Super Bowl ended. Nine days. The conclusion of said Super Bowl also capped off the end of one of the greatest individual seasons in NFL history by Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes.

In the aftermath, surely Mahomes was relaxing, taking a couple of weeks off to rest his bones and get his feet back under him after a grueling 20-game season, right?

Not a chance. Mahomes was already back at it with personal trainer extraordinaire Bobby Stroupe in Fort Worth trying to somehow improve upon the extraterrestrial performance he put up in 2022 in both the regular season and the playoffs.

The first thing that came to mind was the Instagram accounts that give advice about what it takes to be successful and how to “10X” your income and get 1% better and all that good stuff. Exercise for 7 hours, sleep for 9, read 1,000 pages, meditate for 3, learn a new skill daily, journal your entire life, and manifest your goals. I’m not saying those things are bad by any means, but some of these accounts and influencers apparently aren’t that strong with math, or they have no actual work for their real-world job to complete each day.

While my brain immediately turns cynical in most circumstances, the comparison really ultimately opened my eyes to something that I probably should have already known. Mahomes is not normal, obviously. But it would appear he’s barely human. Remember how badly he was grimacing, barely even able to walk heading into halftime of the Super Bowl on his re-injured right ankle? Go to his Instagram, the guy is literally doing footwork drills in sand.

This just cements how Mahomes got to where he is today: An unparalleled work ethic coupled with an indescribable skill set is something that you don’t see come to fruition very often in professional athletes. A lot of the time, guys are supremely talented and don’t have to work as hard as their peers. Or they work extremely hard and outpace other players whose talent can’t get them there alone. Mahomes is the chicken and the egg.

There were a lot of comparisons flying around during the weeks between the AFC Championship game and the Super Bowl. Is Mahomes the LeBron James to Tom Brady’s Michael Jordan? I opined that Mahomes is more Michael Jordan to Brady’s Bill Russell, but I’m not so sure about that. I don’t know that there truly is a comparison to Mahomes in any professional athlete that we’ve seen thus far.

This single post doesn’t put him over the top in this conversation, that’s not what I’m saying at all. This is just an observation and an example. But there appears to truly be no one that we’ve seen to this point that matches Mahomes’ unique, generational talent with the work ethic that so many greats before him possessed and he clearly has himself. If Mahomes is so obsessed with excellence that he is already back to work after reaching the absolute peak, maybe we haven’t seen the best of him after all.