Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes has spent the first four weeks of the NFL season playing consciousness-expanding football—scrambling, improvisational, hyper-charismatic stuff. Four games make for a small sample, but if it is at all representative of the underlying talent, Mahomes will be doing big things for a long time.
His big quarterback face will be on billboards and cereal boxes, his big quarterback voice all over the airwaves of this great nation. So Mahomes invites curiosity: Who is this emerging leader of men? What is he made of? How does he conduct himself professionally? When he speaks in the huddle, does he by any stretch of the imagination sound like a Muppet Alex Jones?
That might have been an especially phlegmy day for Mahomes, who was born and raised in Texas, but more or less his voice stays in this same range:
Mahomes brings that rich, gargly quality. Acting coaches always talk about speaking from the diaphragm; they never knew that the real power lies in speaking from the place you cough.
As Terez Paylor of Yahoo Sports learned, Mahomes’s teammates feel that their quarterback sounds like a barking dog (Travis Kelce), “raspy with mucus or something” (Tyreek Hill), and “muddled—like he’s gargling his throat” (Eric Murray). Even his own coach is roasting him:
Please, Patrick, just never talk about turning the freaking frogs gay.