Patrick Mahomes Threw a Tantrum in Last Night’s Chiefs Bills Game

The problem with Mahomes’ tantrum, is it doesn’t support any of those goals. In contrast, it causes him to get caught up in things he can’t control and can’t change. And since Mahomes in the leader of the team, he sets the tone for his teammates, possibly causing them to revel in misery rather than focus on what positive actions they could take.

Of course, all of us are guilty of moments like this. All of us get caught up in circumstances that push us over the edge, that cause us to say or do things we later regret. Only, most of us don’t do it with millions of people watching.

Still, there is something to be learned from moments like these, for both Mahomes and us.

An emotionally intelligent response

When we experience an emotional hijack like this, we can take time afterwards to complete an “emotional postmortem,” to ponder what we could have done differently, and how this action would have better supported our goals.

Even if he lost control of his emotions for a brief time, he could have come back to Allen and said something like this:

“Oh man, you got us this time. Look out for playoff time, though. We’re coming.”

At the press conference, he could have said something like this:

“You know, I’m not even going to talk about that call. It’s over. There’s nothing I can do about it. We’re going to pick up from here and do our absolute best to play great football moving forward.”

And he could have told the guys in the locker room something like this:

In reality, we have no idea: Maybe Mahomes did say that last part behind closed doors. If he didn’t, he could take advantage of the opportunity to do so today. Doing so would help both himself and his teammates to learn from the past, but focus on the future.