Mahomes piles up big numbers at Arrowhead five days before Panthers game

Patrick Mahomes piled up some very big numbers at Arrowhead Stadium last week. Twice.

Five days before throwing for four touchdowns and nearly 400 yards in the Kansas City Chiefs’ 33-31 victory over the Carolina Panthers, Mahomes helped turn his home stadium into a giant polling place on Election Day.

When Missouri couldn’t figure out a way to pay for a polling station at Arrowhead Stadium, the Chiefs and their star quarterback chipped in the six figures necessary to cover the cost of 40 voting machines and other necessities that allowed Jackson County residents to vote there.

“I thought it was very important. Not only just to get as many people out to vote as possible, but also to use a place (such) as Arrowhead where we have a lot of fun, show a lot of love and unity with people coming together, and use it as a place where we can come together to vote and use our voice,” Mahomes told the “ Huddle & Flow ” podcast with Jim Trotter and Steve Wyche.

Chiefs president Mark Donovan and coach Andy Reid were among the first to vote at Arrowhead on Tuesday.

Mahomes, who filled out an absentee ballot from Texas, said he voted for the first time in his life, as did Denver Broncos star linebacker Von Miller, who is recovering from ankle surgery.

Miller went on Instagram Live on the eve of the election to tell Sen. Cory Booker (D-New Jersey) that he decided to cast his ballot after a heart-to-heart conversation with Broncos running backs coach Curtis Modkins.

“I just wanted to let my voice be heard,” Miller told Booker. “We’ve been fighting for the right to vote for years and years and one of my coaches, Coach Modkins, he sat down with us and we had a team meeting and we talked about how important it is to vote no matter who is on the ballot.

“Our people have been fighting for years and years and years for this right. And we owe it to them to go out there and vote. That really just struck me and that was really the wave that pushed me over the top to go out there and exercise my voice.”

The NFL and its players union announced last week that following their joint efforts through NFL Votes and #AthleteAndVoter nonpartisan initiatives, 90% of active players were registered to vote in this year’s election and half the league’s stadiums were used as early voting or Election Day polling sites.