Patrick Mahomes’s ascent has been fascinating.
That’s not just a commentary on his performance on the field, where he’s shot-putting the ball left-handed, slinging no-look passes on the move, and doing other downright stupid/great stuff the likes of which the NFL has never seen.
In the context of the NFL and football as a whole, Mahomes’s rise as a pop cultural figure is unique in how driven it has been by the internet’s ethos of viral creativity and immediacy. He’s the first truly great NFL superstar who, at least at the moment, is also a living, breathing meme.