Mahomes Broke Football-and a Generation of Quarterbacks

New Orleans EVERYONE WHO PICKS UP a football these days dreams of throwing it like Patrick Mahomes.

- By ANDREW BEATON AND JOSHUA ROBINSON

He makes no-look passes, tosses it one way while his body moves the other and turns plays that look doomed into enormous gains through his uncanny ability to elude pass rushers. Mahomes takes the stuff of kids on the playground and pulls it off against the best football players on the planet.

The problem for anyone attempting to play like Mahomes is that Mahomes has proven inimitable. But that hasn't stopped a generation of quarterbacks from trying. They mimic his style, without his gift for improvisation, and learn the hard way that Mahomes is the exception, not the rule. Keen observers of the position look at up-and-coming passers and see eroding fundamentals everywhere they look.

"We're seeing the greatest in the world do something that's so rare, and we think, 'Oh, I should be able to do that," says two-time MVP quarterback Kurt Warner.

"And too many guys get off track because of it." Mahomes's unique abilities are the reason the Chiefs are in position to become the first three-peat champions in modern NFL history when they take on the Eagles in Sunday's Super Bowl. Over the course of that run, he has made everyone rethink how to play quarterback. He took the traditional blueprint-operating from the confines of the pocket, as mastered by Joe Montana and Tom Brady and incinerated it in a Kansas City barbecue pit.