We were robbed of the Patrick Mahomes story we wanted. We got a better one instead

The conversation on the sideline unfolded about as you probably expected it did — a little like a teenager who thinks he’s grown old enough to make his own decisions, only to be reminded by his father that, nah, I’m gonna go ahead and put my foot down on this one.

Patrick Mahomes wanted to play through the ankle injury as though nothing had happened. We know that by his slamming a puffy winter coat into the soggy grass near the bench. We already knew that because we’ve been paying attention for the last five years.

Andy Reid said no.

And, well, “He wanted to fight,” the Chiefs’ head coach said.

An omen, right?

The Chiefs beat the Jacksonville Jaguars 27-20 on Saturday in the AFC Divisional Round of the NFL playoffs, a result many of us expected, but not the route to get there that any of us expected.

With Mahomes.

Then without him.

Then with a lesser form of him that fought to get by the Jaguars but, if we’re being honest here, probably would not be good enough to get by the Bills or Bengals next weekend. The future now hinges on an ankle’s response to treatment over the next eight days.

We were robbed of the story we should have received Saturday — the best player on the planet trying to bounce-back from the worst game of his life. It was a pretty compelling one, too. This was, after all, his first playoff game since that second-half collapse against the Bengals in last year’s AFC Championship Game. That’s the story we wanted.

Not the one we got.

But we were gifted a good one anyway.

The superhuman quarterback won a playoff game without his superpowers. Like Bruce Wayne, absent the Batman suit, fighting off Gotham’s most notorious criminals.

He had some help, to be sure, because for more than a quarter, it was evident that he needed it. Mahomes could hardly move, moving so awkwardly that you wondered if it was safe to leave him out there. He entered the game on a streak of 119 consecutive scrambles without being sacked, the longest streak in Next Gen Stats history (since 2016).

That is one of his superpowers, though that alone is cutting him short — this is an earned advantage, an advantage he spends multiple days every week working to gain.

For three drives, though, he missed some pretty easy throws. Heck, he felt it necessary to inform his center, Creed Humphrey, that he’d be slower getting out of the snaps, just so Humphrey would know not to jerk out and potentially step on his injured ankle.

But there came a point Saturday when the Chiefs needed the healthy Mahomes. Needed the soon-to-be-named MVP. Needed the guy in the cape.

Turns out, he didn’t need it.

The Jaguars had trimmed the lead to just three points early in the fourth quarter, and I’m not exaggerating when I say you could feel a venue that has housed some of the worst playoff memories in a generation brace for one more. Why wouldn’t they? The Chiefs had gained all of 51 yards in their previous 14 plays.

Would this really have fallen as an outlier to this stadium’s history? Would any of us have driven home through Saturday night thinking, Welp, that was a first.

Deprived of his most noticeable cheat codes, however, Mahomes beat the game anyway. Beat the history.

One MVP drive.

On one ankle.

It required 10 plays, six of them throws, to cover 70 yards and enable the Chiefs to respond with a touchdown that would ice the game in falling snow. On the touchdown throw, Mahomes had to jump off the wrong foot just to muster enough velocity to get the ball to Marquez Valdes-Scantling in the back of the end zone — like 12-year-old Henry in the movie Rookie of the Year losing his special talent midway through a game, remembering he still had the core of what made him great in the first place, and then resorting to having to throw the floater.

What we just witnessed has the potential to wind up as one of the signature moments in a career destined for the Hall of Fame, and this probably isn’t the first time you’ve seen a reference to Willis Reed. These are the types of games that can define careers — what the best of the best do when they are absent their best.

But the next few weeks will determine how it holds up to the test of time. “Thirteen seconds” should be plastered across billboards in Kansas City, featured in the introduction video at every game for the next decade. But you can’t think of that game without the pain of remembering what came next, and so maybe it’s just easier to forget them both.

It would be a shame to waste this moment. An even bigger shame if the ankle wastes this moment — though Mahomes has played through a high-ankle sprain in the past. He injured it in the first half of the 2019 season opener, also against the Jaguars. There will likely be some things he still can’t do next weekend, and some things he really needs to do against either a Bills or Bengals team that is far superior to the one he just beat.

“I missed some throws I think I probably could have made if I would have been in the (correct) foot position,” Mahomes said, before adding a quip: “But luckily for me, I’m not in the (correct) foot position all the time.”

We saw a side of Mahomes we have seen in the past, potentially an indicator of what we’ll see in the near future, but never to this level. In between it all, we had a truly bizarre dynamic unfolding at the stadium — a test of just how far he was willing to take this.

Reid had insisted on X-rays if Mahomes wanted to play after his right ankle got crunched by Jaguars edge rusher Arden Key. Mahomes refused, then was told it was the only way he’d be allowed back in the game. He showed his displeasure as he stormed off the field.

For a span of about 15 minutes after he dipped his head into the staircase leading to the locker room, some 75,000 people inside the stadium wanted to know what the hell was going on in that X-ray room. His own teammates were whispering to one another for updates, a couple asking assistant coaches if they knew anything.

All No. 15 wanted to know was what the hell was going on out there — out on the field. He didn’t have access to a TV in the locker room, so he awaited test results results that would determine whether he would even have a chance to influence the game’s result.

“I mean, pretty nervous moments, man,” Mahomes said.

He’s waited 12 months to wash out the flavor of last year’s ending in the AFC Championship Game. What a story that would be, right?

Its plot just got a little more intriguing.