NFL: Move Over Brady, Brees, And Manning, The Garbage Pail Kid Is Now King

Hopefully we’re starting to witness serious decline in the NFL, and I’m hoping against hope that with the end of the age of great White quarterbacks, we’ll see interest collapse.

Think about it – most people younger than their 30’s can’t remember Joe Montana, Steve Young, or John Elway, Payton Manning and Brett Favre are retired, and Tom Brady and Drew Brees are entering the twilight of their careers.

But maybe we’re now seeing what the sports industry is going to be promoting in the new decade – steel yourselves, though, for it’s something out of Mordor.

The Kansas City Star:

Sure, Patrick Mahomes was dynamite in his true debut as the Chiefs’ starting quarterback last week at Los Angeles. Good enough to be recognized as AFC offensive player of the week and to make even those of us who assumed growing pains were ahead consider the possibility that he may somehow seamlessly become a star.

Then again, that was against a Chargers franchise beset by key defensive injuries, playing a team that Andy Reid’s Chiefs teams have absolutely owned. So maybe you wondered how much of that was fool’s gold as he entered Week 2 on Sunday at Pittsburgh — aka “Blitzburgh,” which has been a bullying nemesis to Reid’s KC teams.

This game loomed as a rude awakening, a reckoning, truth serum. And indeed it was … for anyone who needed evidence of what a rare and monumental force the Chiefs have in Mahomes, who will turn 23 on Monday.

With six touchdown passes in the Chiefs’ 42-37 victory over the Steelers on Sunday at Heinz Field, Mahomes at once matched the franchise single-game record set by Len Dawson in 1964 and the NFL record for the first two games of a season with 10.

“That’s insane,” Chiefs receiver Sammy Watkins said.

In the process, he sent up a flare: No matter how porous the Chiefs’ defense might be, this generational-type talent, surrounded by a potent and versatile cast cultivated by offensive brainiac Reid, means the Chiefs just about always will have a good chance to win.

A couple of questions for the reader:

Am I being mean when I sit here and hope for a total and destructive knee injury for this mysterious evolutionary regression?

Like, should I just hope for an ACL tear, or can I go all in by demanding nothing less than the holy trifecta of ligament annihilation?

“The possibilities are endless,” Mahomes said, speaking less about himself than what’s around him after throwing fewer incompletions (five, hitting 23 of 28 targets for 326 yards) than touchdown passes.

…

What if he’s both a prodigy and an athletic phenomenon?

What if the combination of incredible arm, vision, smarts, supporting cast and mindset mean he is, as Watkins put it, just doing “what he’s supposed to do?”

All the attributes are an inseparable package, but maybe one factor is more instrumental than anything else in terms of how rapidly he seems to be actually meeting utterly unreasonable expectations.

I’m going to predict right now and right here what’s going to come of this Mahomes character.

He’s either going to become yet another cultural symbol against the White Man, or he’s going to be ordered from (((up above))) to stay quiet, avoid getting arrested with a stash or for trying to kill his White girlfriend, and will be propped up as the new Tom Brady – except better because of “hybrid vigor.”

However, it will in the end come down to the White Man whether this succeeds or whether this fails.

Make the right decision, and don’t degrade yourself and your people by being seen wearing this Colored gentleman’s jersey.