KANSAS CITY, Mo. — If you want to know the truth, sometimes even the irrepressible and apparently unflappable Patrick Mahomes actually feels anxiety in the crucible of the biggest moments of the biggest games.

But … only when he’s on the sideline.

“I feel nervous until I get on the field,” he said when I asked him in October about what he feels inside in those extreme situations. “I mean, I know it’s a big moment, and I know … we have to go out there and score. But it’s like when you get out on the field and you go through your process, you forget about the nerves.”

In those instances, a man with an uncanny sense of everything around him at virtually all times doesn’t see or feel the stage he’s on.

Or have any direct consciousness of the stadium or any other surroundings or atmosphere around him.

Heck, beyond what he needs to know to work the clock, he’s not even worried about how much time is left.

“I’m just worried about executing that play,” he said, “at that time.”

If that sounds both too simplistic and still inexplicable, much more goes into creating the rare state of mind that somehow is both uncluttered and brimming with peak intensity — and often able to execute the unfathomable.

As much as anything else about Mahomes, that’s why the Chiefs have been able to embark on a quest for an unprecedented Super Bowl three-peat that begins in earnest on Saturday when they play host to the Houston Texans in the AFC divisional round — in which Mahomes is 6-0 with 16 touchdown passes and zero interceptions.

‘I’m going to make the next play’

Mesmerizing as the two-time NFL and Super Bowl MVP can be in the regular season, before he’s even turned 30 years old he stands on a tier with the immortals of the game in the postseason.

No player in NFL history with 10 or more postseason starts has a better career playoff quarterback rating than Mahomes’ 105.8 (Baker Mayfield has a 105.9 rating with just five postseason starts). And no one in NFL history with more than 10 postseason starts has a better playoff winning percentage than Mahomes (.833).

With a 15-3 postseason record, Mahomes is one win away from tying Joe Montana for second place in league history … albeit a galaxy behind Tom Brady’s 35.

His 41 playoff touchdown passes (with only eight interceptions) are five from passing Montana and Aaron Rodgers behind only Brady’s 88.

And if the Chiefs go on to win the Super Bowl again this season he’ll match Montana and Terry Bradshaw with four to his name — eclipsed only by Brady’s seven.

Gaudy as all that sounds, though, the numbers are most animated by the unforgettable plays he makes in the cauldron of chaos:

Like Jet Chip Wasp with the Chiefs down 10 in the fourth quarter of Super Bowl LIV; the berserk 27-yard touchdown run against Tennessee that gave the Chiefs a lead they’d never surrender in that season’s AFC championship game; the stupefying drive with 13 seconds left to tie the Bills and set up his overtime TD pass to Travis Kelce three years ago; the 26-yard run on a compromised ankle to set up the game-winning field goal in Super Bowl LVII; rushing for 27 yards and completing all eight passes he threw in overtime, including the game-winning touchdown to Mecole Hardman, in Super Bowl LVIII.

And many more as the Chiefs defined themselves in part by winning all three of those recent Super Bowls (and all three 2019 postseason games) after being down double digits — and winning eight of their last 14 playoff games by one score.

That vast array of plays has one thing in common.

Something offensive coordinator Matt Nagy calls “DNA-driven” and says simmers down to an intangible you can practically see as a living, breathing entity.

A lot of players might say they want the ball in those crucial situations.

“But a lot of guys that say that, they don’t want the ball,” Nagy said. “He wants the ball. … He embraces it.”

And while plenty of talented players might find themselves wondering, “Who’s going to make the next play?” Nagy added, Mahomes is on the bench telling himself, “I’m going to make the next play.”

He added: “You know how comforting that is as a coach to just know that you have a guy that wants the ball in that moment? … And usually when guys (have that conviction) — talk about speaking it into existence. He does that, and you feel that the players feel that. It’s kind of contagious.”

Even as it starts from a unique formula.

Mahomes’ unique DNA

Having such a striking sort of winning edge doesn’t happen in a vacuum; nearly everything about Mahomes’ talent and makeup funnels into this particular superpower:

The absurd arm, the keen intelligence, the photographic memory, spatial awareness, drawing on basketball and baseball skills into his quarterbacking, his father’s professional baseball past, insatiable training, relentless study and pure heart and grit.

(Not to mention a love of sleep perhaps being challenged right about now with wife Brittany giving birth this week to their third child, Golden Raye.)

All of that makes for a deep reservoir of trust in himself that informs how he plays when it matters most.

That calm amid the mayhem is something he’s cultivated all the more through meditation (starting at Texas Tech with Paddy Steinfort, then a mental performance consultant for the school).

And through such elements as an extensive pregame routine to visualize and transition into what his longtime trainer Bobby Stroupe told me in 2019 is “a flow state, to where his body is in less of a conscious-type mode and more of an unconscious, parallel-type universe.”

“I’ve always said I’m two different people,” Mahomes told The Kansas City Star during 2023 training camp, adding, “everyday me, and then the game-day me.”

Which builds toward the magic of Mahomes in crunch time — not to be confused with the Mahomes Magic Crunch cereal.

His serenity amid the trials that tend to burden most mortals is its own distinct trait in the two-time NFL and Super Bowl MVP.

And as someone who’s innately a problem-solver, as Stroupe will tell you, Mahomes has no time for fear of failure or getting flustered.

Instead, he’s typically consumed with the solution for any dilemma — and often creating his own reality around it.

“He comes to me about nine months and ago and says, ‘Hey, man, we’ve got to get the first-round bye; I’ve got a baby coming,’” Nagy recalled with a laugh. “I mean, the guy predicted (the arrival date) of his baby. You can’t make that up.”

As for how that applies on the field, I’ll never forget what Rich Keefe, Duke University’s former director of sports psychology, once told me: “You know his psychology has to be, ‘I can do this. Where is it? Where’s the lock that fits this key? Because I have a key.’ ”

Especially when he’s as hyper-focused as he is this time of year while he seemingly continues to adhere to one of Steinfort’s lasting lessons about how few things (perhaps six) your mind can think about at once.

The whole notion reminds me of something George Brett said last summer as he spoke about the emergence of Bobby Witt Jr. and his particularly hot mid-summer.

When you’re that hot, Brett said, “you don’t have any negative thoughts going through your mind. … When you’re swinging the bat that good, your mind is blank.”

He added, “You can’t read the ticker tape (on TV news) and hear at the same time, right? Your mind can only do one thing at a time.”

In the case of Mahomes, it’s a thing he’s been able to summon almost without fail in the postseason — when many others are left grasping for what comes to naturally to him.

“He’s just different,” Nagy said. “It’s like DNA. You either have it or you don’t.”

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