What Was Patrick Mahomes Drinking on SNF? 🧪

A college football color analyst for CBS Sports recently admitted to spending $300,000 per year on social media content. For context, that’s $25,000 per month, $5,769.23 per week, or $821.91 per day.

So is it worth it? I’ll give my take at the end.

In today’s newsletter:

🗞 The Big Story: Did Caleb Williams’ Cleats Just Save Him From A Season-Ending Injury?

📉 Biggest Loser: How Did The Buffalo Bills Get Their Name?

🏆 Winner’s Circle: What Was Patrick Mahomes Drinking on SNF?

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Did Caleb Williams’ cleats just save him from a season-ending injury?

Well, the answer to this question actually reveals one of the biggest double standards in sports. Let me explain.

Brand Preference: After attending two Nike universities, Oklahoma and USC, Williams entered the NFL in 2024 and, unsurprisingly, wore Nike cleats during his rookie season. However, after spending the 2025 offseason wearing New Balance cleats, which fueled speculation that he might be signing with the company, fans were once again confused when he came out of the tunnel during Week 1 that season wearing Nike cleats again.

But that’s not what he’s wearing this year.

Through the first two weeks of the 2026 season, Caleb has been quietly wearing a brand called Caddix Cleats. So why isn’t anyone talking about it?

Market Differentiator: Caddix is actually the only brand on the market that utilizes something called “SmartStuds,” which can flex up to 12 degrees during sharp cuts and pivots and rotate a full 360 degrees as an athlete moves to help take pressure off their lower body joints in order to reduce the risk of serious non-contact injuries, like the kind Caleb narrowly avoided against the Vikings.

Now, interestingly, he actually wore these exact same cleats on his Madden cover; you probably just didn’t notice because, as you can see in the behind-the-scenes content, it appears that someone taped over the Caddix logo, which is strange, because logos appear on the Madden cover all the time.

Money Talks: The same thing happened earlier this year too with Joe Flacco, when Netflix photoshopped a Nike logo onto the Caddix cleats he'd worn all season.

Now, the answer to why a brand like EA or Netflix would do something like this is simple: the NFL doesn’t want a competitor to one of its biggest sponsors getting any extra publicity.

But in my opinion, if the NFL truly cared about player safety as much as they claim, I don't think they'd want to cover up a cleat that helps reduce serious non-contact injuries.

How did the Buffalo Bills get their name? I mean, just think about it: sure, their logo is a buffalo, but then what’s a “Bill?”

Well, the answer actually reveals one of the worst thought-out mascots in sports history.

Competing Names: After fielding two failed professional football teams in the 1920s and early 40s, Frontier Oil Company owner James Breuil launched the city’s third team in 1946 in the newly formed All-America Football Conference, which played its first season as the “Buffalo Bisons.”

The only issue was that three other teams in the city shared the same name. So, wanting to distinguish his franchise, Breuil held a “name that team contest” and offered $500 to the winning entry, which is almost $8,000 in today’s money.

Now, obviously, Breuil ended up choosing “Bills” as the winning team name. And even though the AAFC folded just two years later, when Ralph Wilson started a fourth team in Buffalo in 1960, he adopted the name, which still lives on today.

But why “Bills?”

Nostalgia: Well, Jame Breuil was obsessed with this American folk hero from his childhood named William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody.

He was a Union soldier who was hired after the Civil War by a railroad company to supply workers with buffalo meat. As legend has it, “Buffalo Bill” bagged 4,282 buffalo in just 18 months between 1867 and 1869, which led to nationally published stories and even a popular traveling show made about him.

And evidently, wanting to keep that same “frontier” spirit and branding for his football team, Breuil chose the “Bills” to honor a legend from his childhood.

I just wonder if he considered that he’d be naming his football team after a guy famous for hunting his mascot?

What the heck was Mahomes drinking before his last game?

The short answer is pickle juice, but the reason why is actually a lot more complicated than you might think.

Quick Fix: You probably know pickle juice as a popular method to relieve cramps. Historically, trainers believed muscle cramps were caused by a combination of dehydration and low electrolyte levels, which an electrolyte-rich drink like pickle juice could quickly fix.

But that’s not how pickle juice actually works…

Misunderstandings: In 2005, researchers studied athletes experiencing cramps and found their electrolyte and hydration levels were normal. Not to mention, even the smallest volumes of liquid take about 30 minutes to leave your stomach. Meaning an athlete’s electrolyte levels wouldn’t increase fast enough to immediately alleviate their cramps just by drinking pickle juice.

Still, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t work.

That’s because around the same time, scientists realized that when your muscles cramp, it’s because neurons in your brain tell your muscles to contract, overpowering the receptors in your fatigued muscles that trigger relaxation. And it’s this repeated signal to contract, without relaxation, that causes muscles to cramp — not dehydration or a lack of electrolytes.

So then how does pickle juice help?

Pickle Power: The truth is, the electrolytes in pickle juice can help shorten muscle cramp duration; however, the real benefit actually comes from its taste.

Evidently, the acetic acid in the vinegar chemically triggers a reflex in the back of the throat that has been shown to decrease the activity of the neurons in your brain that try to contract your muscles, allowing them to relax and helping relieve cramps.

In fact, studies show that you don’t even have to swallow the pickle juice to trigger the reflex, and most athletes can feel relief from cramps in less than 3-4 minutes.

Still, that didn’t stop Mahomes from just chugging it anyway.

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👋🏻 Happy Friday!

I’ll caveat this take by saying I’m a fan of Adam Breneman. He’s a huge advocate of the sports creator economy, made clear by the fact that he’s dumping $300K into it every year.

However, obviously, spending that kind of money isn’t required to do what he’s doing. My guess is that Adam values being super hands-off with his content. That is, he wants to show up, sit down, talk to camera, and not think about it again.

Clearly, this is working well enough for him to invest this kind of money, but it’s a difficult tightrope to walk. I get worried for creators in this position, since putting that kind of distance between you and the content often makes the final product feel directionless.

Colin and Samir put it best when they said, “creative output + no direction = burnout”

Kudos to Adam and team for setting a clear enough direction so that this burnout isn’t happening, but for everyone else, all you need is an iPhone and a willingness to fail.