Juggling, walking barefoot and a pre-game smooch: How KC Chiefs get ready for kickoff

Before every game, Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes puts on the same pair of red underwear, he confirmed last month on ESPN’s “ManningCast.”

Then comes the more observable and substantial routine you can see for yourself before every game as he transitions his identity.

“I’ve alway said I’m two different people,” Mahomes told The Star in an interview during training camp, adding, “Everyday me, and then the game-day me.”

So he jogs out of the locker room in a hoodie and sprawls out on the bench for some 20 to 30 minutes. He gazes around as he strolls the field (trying to avoid stepping on lines or logos, as he noted in the Netflix “Quarterback” documentary) and prays at the goalposts.

“I visualize the game; I try to visualize the things happening before they even happen,” he told The Star. “I always walk the field, and I’m kind of looking around and just seeing everything.

“Because once you get in the game, it’s all about focusing on the major points. And I want to make sure that’s not the first time I’ve seen that spot in the stadium.”

Then he’ll limber up with long tosses, take what he calls his “trademark fadeaway” basketball shot (with a football) into the arms of a teammate. Later, he’ll kiss his wife, Brittany, and unleash a cathartic scream after the coin toss.

Any aspect of the regimen might be considered superstition. But quirks and all, it’s not really as capricious as that.

It’s about what Mahomes’ longtime trainer Bobby Stroupe in 2019 told me was getting him “into what we would call a flow state, to where his body is in less of a conscious-type mode and more of an unconscious, parallel-type universe.”

While the habits of the two-time MVP and Super Bowl MVP are the most scrutinized and celebrated of the Chiefs, every teammate — not to mention any high-performance athlete — has essentially the same goal.

But their approaches to getting there are infinitely varied and at times highly personalized: Consider the deeply emotional new routine of cornerback L’Jarius Sneed, so eloquently described by colleague Sam McDowell, who commemorates his late brother with a message on a wrap around his wrist: “Long live TQ.”

As the Chiefs, the No. 3 seed in the AFC, prepare for the playoffs after their last regular-season game against the Chargers on Sunday in Los Angeles, here’s a glimpse at the ways some players try to get ready as the crucible nears:

Offensive lineman Nick Allegretti

Allegretti likes his locker clean and organized and even tidily arranges his postgame clothes soon after he arrives on game day.

But the bag he always has with him is never without a Rubik’s Cube and three balls to juggle, either of which he might turn to as the game nears to help ward off his emotions spiking too early.

“I like juggling; I don’t know why but it’s peaceful …” he said. “And the Rubik’s Cube kind of sets my mind. I feel like seeing one solved just makes me feel a little better.”

As an avid coin collector, Allegretti tends to always have a new one near at hand. On the day we spoke a few weeks ago, he showed me a 1964 Topps Mickey Mantle coin.

“Just looking at them or holding them relaxes me,” he said.

But don’t call these superstitions.

“Which is ironic, after what I just told you,” he said, smiling.

If he comes to realize he hadn’t solved a Rubik’s Cube, for instance, he doesn’t feel the need to go back to that.

“In my mind, I didn’t have to do it that day to get myself right,” he said. “So it’s not a superstition, it’s a ritual. And if I don’t need that ritual that day, it’s OK.”

Defensive lineman Mike Danna

Coinciding with his best NFL season, Danna has adopted a new game-day routine that typically starts before he even gets out of bed.

“As soon as I wake up (on game day), I meditate for the first 10 or 15 minutes,” said Danna, who has started all 16 games. “I kind of go through what I want to accomplish throughout the day, and my goals and visions and (how to) manifest things.”

The visualization helps him get in what he called “a comfortable state of mind” and, naturally, is entirely positive.

“Absolutely. No negative things. No self-doubting,” he said. “I’m picturing myself making plays, picturing myself making moves … Just positive reinforcement.”

He’d heard about such concepts before but became persuaded from some offseason reading that it was time to consider some new ways.

“Then when you actually try it and you see it work, you’re kind of like, ‘Dang, this actually works,’ so you start doing it more,” he said. “It’s been cool.”

Defensive lineman Derrick Nnadi

Nnadi figures most of his emotional readiness is accomplished during the week with proper preparation and trying to get about 10 hours of sleep the night before the game.

Because “by game day,” he said, “you either have it or you don’t.”

Just the same, “to keep a cool mind,” he’ll listen to what he calls a “melting pot of artists” on the way to the stadium as he strives to keep his head clear and at peace.

That’s what most enables him to “enter the mechanism,” as he put it, undistracted by crowd noise and badmouthing and feel only quiet around him as he focuses on the task before him.

Safety Justin Reid

Like most of his teammates, Reid differentiates between ritual and superstition.

With a superstition, after all, “you’re almost fearful if it doesn’t happen,” he said. “A ritual is like, ‘This is my routine, but (everything would be fine if) things change up a little bit’”

Early in the season, one of his rituals is kicking field goals before every game — a practice that paid off last season when he converted an extra point after Harrison Butker suffered an injury at Arizona.

But it was easy enough for him to just shut it down a few weeks ago.

“It got cold,” he said, laughing.

Still, he has a few things he clings to for maximum performance.

That includes trying to sleep by around 10:30 p.m. the night before a noon game — lest it get to be around midnight “and you start thinking about how much you need to get to sleep.”

Easing into game day, he’ll listen to “calm, chill” music. But he also likes to sit at his locker and go over the playbook and his defensive calls … out loud.

“At least for me, when I talk out loud it helps me stay on track,” he said. “When I’m just thinking it in my head, then it’s easier to get distracted. Intrusive thoughts might come in; you might think about something else. When you’re saying it out loud, it just locks me more into the moment.”

All of which helps him “see it before it happens” on the field and be able to make calls with the conviction and immediacy of the “last-minute touch of confidence.”

Like Mahomes, with whom he occasionally sits on the bench hours before the game, Reid also likes to go out to the field long before he has to.

“Just to take in the environment,” he said. “Have an appreciation for the moment.”

Right guard Trey Smith

At Jacksonville earlier this season, Smith’s undershirt got torn wide open. Pleased by the freedom of movement and ventilation, he’s been wearing the same one since.

“It was a hotter day, and I don’t like anything restricting me, especially under my pads,” he said. “So it just sort of stuck.”

But about everything else he does is “bland,” as he put it, and methodically process-driven, particularly in the pre-game locker room itself:

He listens to “chill music” and largely keeps to himself, he said. Because as he’s locking, in he doesn’t “want to talk to a whole lot of people. I don’t like all the rah-rah stuff, personally.”

Mostly, he’s trying to stay calm and preserve energy because he wants the “juice” for “when it’s time to activate.”

Because, he added, “you know what’s about to happen.”

Right tackle Jawaan Taylor

Since Taylor’s father, Robert, was an assistant pastor, Taylor grew up going to church three times a week. And that informs what he leans on most to “stay nice and mellow” as he gets ready to play.

Gospel is part of the array of music he listens to on his Beats noise-canceling headphones, which help him stay in his own head. And you can expect to see him take a knee in prayer on the sideline before (not during) the national anthem.

Linebacker Drue Tranquill

Perhaps in keeping with his surname, Tranquill likes to walk the field barefoot before games, barring overly adverse conditions.

“Really, it’s just like a grounding-type thing, just being where your feet are,” said Tranquill, the former Charger who learned the concept from then-teammate Derwin James. “Just trying to be in the moment and enjoy it. And it’s kind of a grounding thing for me.”

He also stays grounded through other routines: much-treasured sleep on a hotel night away from his three young children; seeing his family on the sideline; listening to music and praying with the team chaplain. For that matter, he’s also careful to manage the times he eats and all other bodily needs as adrenaline tries to seize control.

“You can really feel your body trying to climax and get ready to play at the right point,” he said. “So for me it’s not about superstition. It’s more about just doing the things that my body needs to do to be at its best.”

Elaborating on what that means, he added, “You’ve got to have mental clarity. You can’t be too overzealous but you also need a little bit of zeal, a little bit of fire.”

With the help of the Bible he’s apt to read everywhere from his hotel room to the pre-game locker room, Tranquill also strives to stay cognizant of gratitude for the moment.

“It’s hard to see the forest for the trees sometimes in an NFL season,” he said. “So just reminding yourself of what you’ve gone through to get to each point and reminding yourself of the ‘why’ and refreshing yourself of the love that you have for the game.”

Receiver Justin Watson

The first song on Watson’s pre-game playlist is “Firestone” by Kygo.

That takes him back to his college days and friendship with Penn teammate Austin Stapleton.

“Even if I just play the first 30 seconds,” he said.

That helps with his main focus before kickoff: calming down and remembering it’s the game he’s been playing since childhood.

Toward that end, Watson demystifies any thoughts of superstition, which he figures is “believing in something that’s kind of outside of your control,” and embraces routine.

“One is more based in fact vs. hope, I would say,” he said.

For that matter, Watson in the offseason goes out of his way to throw off his routine so as to be more adaptable. By way of example, he made sure to work out hard while sleep-deprived from a new baby.

“During the season, things are going to naturally get thrown off: somebody gets sick the day before the game, or you get thrown in there at the last minute or roll your ankle on a Friday,” he said. “So for me, I think a lot of the offseason is throwing myself off.

“So, naturally, when you get thrown off in the season, it’s no big deal.”

Still, he has one other habit he employs just before each game. Back in the locker room just after warmups, he removes his cleats.

“Then, when I lace those cleats back up before we head out,” he said, “it’s go time.”

Long-snapper James Winchester

As he pondered his own rituals, Winchester thought first of how much he sees that all around him.

In individual expressions, yes, but also in a collective cultural sense: players nearly always sitting in the same unassigned seats in the dining hall, meeting rooms and on buses.

As for himself, well, he likes to stay in the hotel upon arrival except for what he calls a “coffee walk” that Alex Smith used to lead. And since he was a little kid whose shoelaces were too long, he’s tied them into as many knots as possible — typically at least five.

“But you know what? They stay tied,” he said, smiling. “And believe it or not, they are easy to get out (once) you get that first knot out.”

Most significantly, he simply tries to do everything the same way at the same time every week — not unlike what he does on the field.

“If you feel prepared,” he said, “you feel good.”

And to each his own getting there.