Patrick Mahomes will be hoping to impress fans on Saturday when the Kansas City Chiefs take on the Los Angeles Chargers in their NFL season opener at Corinthians Stadium in Brazil. Mahones became the Chiefs’ starting quarterback in 2018 and has led them to seven consecutive AFC Championship Game appearances and five Super Bowl appearances, winning three. Considered by many to be among the greatest quarterbacks of all time, Mahomes is now one of the 10 oldest players on the squad roster, and also one of the 10 oldest starting quarterbacks in football.

He recently spoke to Sports Illustrated during the pre-season and opened up on his playing style and retirement plans.

He said, “The running joke is I don’t really run until the playoffs. But it’s real—I’ll slide more in the regular season, knowing it’s a long season and you don’t have to take those hits. And then when it comes down to it, if it’s the end of games or if it’s playoffs, or big situations, I’ll run and take those hits and get those first downs. And I think that’s kind of subconsciously thinking about,You got to play the entire season, you’ve got to be there for the big moments. So that’s kind of just how I’ve always played.”

“I mean, last year, we won a lot of games where we didn’t play our best football. And it all came to a head in that last game, where we didn’t play our best football. We played against a team that was playing superior football to us that day, and they dominated us. So we had to go back to the drawing board, figure out what we were doing wrong, what we were doing right.”

“It was compounding mistakes. All year long, even if we weren’t playing our best football, we were limiting mistakes, trying to keep ourselves in the game, knowing that we were able to execute at the end of games, and win the games. In that game, we didn’t do that. They got the momentum early and instead of managing the game, getting it back to where we can be in a manageable situation, we just kept, and especially me, I kept compounding mistakes, trying to make a big play happen when it wasn’t there.” he added.

Retirement plans?

It also looks like Mahomes won’t retire anytime soon and is turning 30 two weeks later. “It started with Tom and LeBron [James]—you can play longer. I think, for me, as long as I can play, and have fun, and my family’s enjoying it, I’ll play. I don’t want to take away from my family. My kids are still young, but they’re getting older, and they love coming to the football games; they love being there. And the one good thing—compared to baseball, like when I grew up, my Dad was always gone—with football, you have a home city,” he said.

“So, hopefully, I can play as long as I keep playing well, and my family is enjoying it,” he added