Patrick Mahomes is not a curse like Drake, thank god

Everyone always wants to talk about the Drake curse, and for good reason. Drake is kinda (or a lot) annoying and has adopted every popular team and athlete like he’s this decade’s version of Kenny Chesney.

The curse is notorious enough that Todd Gurley won’t dare save Drake’s number in his cell for fear of karmic retribution. Even when it looks like it could be nearing its end, we still can’t be sure until the Raptors — one of Drake’s actual teams — finally put away the Warriors in the NBA Finals instead of taking a late timeout that kills their momentum.

But another sports curse was just vanquished, and it was happening right under our noses this entire time.

For most of 2019, it seemed like Patrick Mahomes had a Faustian bargain with the universe. Mahomes was a shot in the arm to the NFL last season, captivating fans of all teams in his first year as a starter. He was the league MVP and the closest we had to a video game character coming to life. He became just the third quarterback to ever throw 50 touchdowns in a season. He left us scrambling for different ways to say “ridiculous.” He led the Chiefs to an honest-to-god playoff win at Arrowhead Stadium.

The catch was that all of his teams were doomed to come up just short of a championship.

Until now, that is. After the St. Louis Blues defeated the Boston Bruins in the Stanley Cup Final, we can safely say the Patrick Mahomes Curse is no more.

For a while there, though, it was looking dicey. Let’s take a quick look at Mahomes’ sports year, as both an athlete and fan.

No one should ever, ever consider the Patriots real underdogs this millennium, but the Chiefs were technically the favorite in the AFC Championship Game this January. After all, Kansas City was the No. 1 seed in the conference, secured homefield advantage, and had the league MVP at quarterback.

But it was the Patriots who jumped out early, taking a 14-0 lead into halftime. The Chiefs kept battling as the game seesawed back and forth, and with two minutes to go, Mahomes led a five-play, 68-yard drive to put the home team on top. On New England’s next drive, Tom Brady was picked off and it looked like the game was over and the Chiefs were headed to the Super Bowl.

Except for these three words: Dee Ford, offsides.

The Patriots retook the lead two plays later. Though Mahomes threw two long completions to get the Chiefs in field goal range and send the game to overtime, his day was done. The Patriots won the coin toss, ran down the field for the game-winning touchdown, and Mahomes never touched the ball again (because the NFL’s OT rules suuuuuck).

When Texas Tech made its first ever men’s basketball Final Four this spring, Mahomes was there to cheer on his alma mater. In the semifinals, he gave the Red Raiders a nearly aneurysm-inducing pregame pep talk and did not appear to dial down that intensity at all during their game against Michigan State:

He had a front-row view (not literally, but close enough) in the title game and you couldn’t blame him if he felt a major wave of deja vu: Texas Tech rallied from being down double digits — twice. A (correct) call at the worst time for his team overshadowed everything. The Red Raiders lost in overtime.

Oh, and Mahomes didn’t get to touch the ball this time either, though that would’ve been cool.

The Blues had a chance to win the Stanley Cup in Game 6 on their home ice, but the Bruins handed them their second-worst loss of the series to force a Game 7.

Their worst loss of the series also came in St. Louis, when Mahomes was in attendance for Game 3. The Bruins piled on early, sending goalie Jordan Binnington — the star of Game 7 — to the bench after he allowed five goals on 19 shots.

Mahomes still managed to have some fun, like high-fiving a surprisingly preppy-looking Jon Hamm:

And taking part in what has become a ritual this year and our only sign of quarterback virility, apparently:

The Bruins ended up winning 7-2 that night to take a 2-1 series lead. But the Blues got the last laugh with the 4-1 win in Game 7 to claim their first Stanley Cup in franchise history.

Although he wasn’t at the game, it had to feel satisfying for Mahomes. Not only that he didn’t have to watch Boston fans celebrate, but most importantly, that a team he was cheering for brought home a trophy. The third time was the charm, not a trend.

Mahomes is an athletic prodigy, gifted with the ability to throw a football a few hundred yards, while blindfolded, with one hand tied behind his back, and after playing dizzy bat. He came by that honestly, though. There was no deal with the devil, no debt he had to pay for his freakish skills, no curse weighing over him, ready to pounce at any given moment.

That means Chiefs fans can feel confident about Mahomes being able to pick up where he left off and take the team even further in the 2019 season.

Wait just a second ...

Oh no.