{"id":59974,"date":"2020-07-17T16:36:14","date_gmt":"2020-07-17T16:36:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=59974"},"modified":"2020-07-17T20:24:21","modified_gmt":"2020-07-17T20:24:21","slug":"how-patrick-mahomes-became-the-superstar-the-nfl-needs-right-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=59974","title":{"rendered":"How Patrick Mahomes Became the Superstar the NFL Needs Right Now"},"content":{"rendered":"

How Patrick Mahomes Became the Superstar the NFL Needs Right Now<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

GQ<\/a>
\n2020-07-15<\/p>\n

Clay Skipper<\/strong><\/a>, Staff Writer
\nPhotography by: Pari Dukovic<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

After winning his first Super Bowl<\/a>, Kansas City Chiefs<\/a> quarterback Patrick Mahomes<\/a> was supposed to have a straightforward summer: First sign a blockbuster new contract. Then prepare to repeat. But when a pandemic<\/a> gave way to a protest movement that implicated the NFL<\/a>, the game\u2019s brightest star began to find his voice\u2014and prove that he\u2019s as adroit off the field as he is on it.<\/em><\/p>\n

Patrick Mahomes<\/a> calls right on time.<\/strong> When my phone rings, the area code flashes \u201cTyler, Texas<\/a>,\u201d where the young Kansas City Chiefs<\/a> quarterback grew up. It’s early June and a pivotal point in an already momentous off-season. Whatever he might have expected as he walked off the field in February\u2014a first-time Super Bowl<\/a> winner, coronation complete, celebration on the horizon\u2014was upended by a generational pandemic. And now, historic protests roil the country. Two weeks have passed since the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police<\/a>, and the 24-year-old Mahomes is still trying to make sense of the moment.<\/p>\n

Just a few days earlier, Mahomes had joined more than a dozen other Black NFL stars\u2014Odell Beckham Jr.<\/a>, Michael Thomas<\/a>, and Saquon Barkley<\/a> among them\u2014in a powerful 71-second video, calling on their employer to condemn racism. It shouldn’t have been a bold assertion. But, of course, it was. While nearly every big American corporation was addressing the significant work to be done on racial justice and equality, the NFL<\/a> was being asked to address a particularly egregious track record. This is a league in which 70 percent of players are Black but only three coaches, two general managers, and zero majority owners are; a league in which the response to Colin Kaepernick’s<\/a> protest of police brutality was to promptly run him out of a job.<\/p>\n

This time, though, the reaction was different. Less than a day after the players’ video, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell<\/a> filmed a clip of his own, offering a point-by-point affirmation of the players’ requests. According to a report from ESPN<\/em>, a key factor in his swift response was the participation of one young player in particular: Patrick Mahomes…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After winning his first Super Bowl, Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes was supposed to have a straightforward summer: First sign a blockbuster new contract. Then prepare to repeat. But when a pandemic gave way to a protest movement that implicated the NFL, the game\u2019s brightest star began to find his voice\u2014and prove that he\u2019s as adroit off the field as he is on it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,8,23674,20],"tags":[31037,27626,30710,26777,18329,31038,30709],"class_list":["post-59974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-media-archive","category-social-justice","category-usa","tag-clay-skipper","tag-gq","tag-kansas-city-chiefs","tag-national-football-league","tag-nfl","tag-pari-dukovic","tag-patrick-mahomes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=59974"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59980,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59974\/revisions\/59980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}