MAHOMES SHOULD BE WORSHIPPED — SHAME ON RAIDERS WHEN PIERCE IS BROKE
Why a rookie safety held a mocking doll of the NFL’s megastar makes no sense when his Las Vegas coach, Antonio Pierce, had his wife file for bankruptcy when the couple has $31.1 million in liabilities
The in-vogue story of an NFL preseason involves Patrick Mahomes and his TV. It’s the first time he has brought one to Missouri Western State University, too far from Kansas City, which somehow doesn’t stupefy the Chiefs to season-long dozes before they win Super Bowls. How captivating to see the biggest name in the league, which makes him the biggest name in sports, show up eagerly after another wild offseason when he boozed with Travis Kelce at the Eras Tour.
He wants to play a college football video game. “And the Olympics,” he said. Why oh why would anyone say Mahomes won’t win a fourth championship in February?
“It’s time to get better,” he said. “I think a lot of us have a weird feeling because we really didn’t play our best football, especially offensively. It wasn’t fun. Once you win a Super Bowl, when you don’t win it, it sucks even more. You experience the offseason of being able to say you’re the champ, and you experience all the different things as a Super Bowl champ, and you experience the feeling of just winning. For us, it sucks because you know what it could be like if you go out there and win it.”
His rationale is brainiacal: You’re afraid to lose because you’ve won three times. Shame on anyone in the league who doesn’t worship his competitive superiority. So explain why a Las Vegas Raiders safety, a rookie named Trey Taylor who was drafted in the seventh round, stood at practice Thursday and held a wigged Mahomes doll meant to mock his hair. A fan carried the “Kermit the Frog” puppet and gave it Taylor, who held it for a viral video. We’ve heard occasional teammates kid Mahomes for having a voice similar to Kermit.
Never have we seen a far inferior opponent try the same trick. This is the latest prank pulled by the Raiders, whose coach, Antonio Pierce, wants to impose “Patrick Mahomes rules” that prompt his defense to manhandle the quarterback. It’s almost humorous that Pierce is in the picture, if a coach who is flat broke in life is comical.
We’ve seen bizarre stories in that franchise, but never a man in charge whose wife filed for bankruptcy in Arizona. Pierce and his wife, Jocelyn, have $31.1 million in liabilities and $9.26 million in assets. Apparently, Pierce lost $22.4 million to Nissan after he invested in car dealerships in the 2010s. His wife wants to “protect her assets and of the marital community.”
Last season, the Raiders finished 8-9. Pierce was named permanent head coach when Jim Harbaugh may have been interested and Bill Belichick was available. He has no starting quarterback, unless we’re counting Aidan O’Connell or Gardner Minshew. If anyone should be toying with a doll, it’s Mahomes clutching a moneyless Pierce.
Instead, his personal trainer posted a simple tweet. “We will remember,” Bobby Stroupe wrote. Mahomes is 10-2 against the Raiders. Why not?
The teams meet Oct. 27, and at that point, maybe Pierce won’t be staying at the Motel 6. Until then, the football world is focused on Mahomes, Kelce and coach Andy Reid. The victory over San Francisco was only an hour old when Mahomes told pass rusher Chris Jones, “Hey, we’re not done, dawg. I want three.”
Meaning, a three-peat, which hasn’t happened since the Vince Lombardi Packers of 1965 to 1967. If that happens, he’ll have four, only three short of Tom Brady. Mahomes has thought about his kids’ ages and thinks he could play into his 40s when Sterling Skye is 19 or 20.
“I would love to play that long. At the same time, I want to be there for my daughter. If I can do that, I’ll continue to play,” he said. “But if I feel like it’s taking away from my family time, that’s when I’ll know it’s time to go.”
He was prominent in Time magazine’s list of most influential people. His Kermit voice wasn’t mentioned in the piece. “At the end of my time, I just want to say that I didn’t leave anything out there. That I didn’t practice hard enough, that I didn’t watch enough film. My family and football are the first things I want to be great at,” Mahomes said. “If I can go out there and say I gave everything I had on the football field, expectations are what they are and whatever is going to happen is going to happen. And I can be satisfied with that.”
If nothing else, Pierce should call with an apology. Knowing Patrick Mahomes, with hundreds of millions entering his portfolio, he’ll make an offer to help. I’m not sure what Travis and Taylor might have in mind.
###
Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.