In professional sports there is a single objective … WIN.

Now, while some organizations appear satisfied to win on their profit and loss statement, I’m viewing success from the fans perspective. The goal of winning games and a league championship. Finding the players to get that done involves a lot of evaluation that measures talent and physical attributes. Over the past 30 years the professional sports has also developed tests in an attempt to evaluate mental strengths.

I’m not sure what the gene is that produces a winner, but I have seen supremely talented athletes that seem to have all the skills necessary to produce a champion and yet for whatever reasons drag a team down. The best example of this that I know of is illustrated by a baseball player; Alex Rodriguez.

With power, speed and shortstop fielding skills one would think Rodriquez would be a key to a winning franchise.

He wasn’t.

Consider this. Rodriquez began his pro baseball career with the Seattle Mariners, led the team and in some cases the league in hitting stats, and the Mariners were an average baseball team. Losing nearly as many games as the won during his six seasons with the team. Then, the year he moved his talents to Texas, 2001, the Mariners won a record number of regular season games, 116.

The Texas Rangers had winning seasons in 2000 and 2004, before and after Rodriquez was on their roster. But in the three seasons he played for the Rangers, the team compiled three losing campaigns.

In 2004, Rodriguez signed a mega contract to join the New York Yankees. It almost seemed unfair that the Yankees, who already had the anointed best player in the league playing shortstop for them, now added the gaudy talents of Rodriguez. The Yankees moved Rodriguez to play third base while Derek Jeter held his position at shortstop.

Of course he did. In Jeter’s first six seasons with the Yankees, they won four World Series titles. For the rest of his career, including ten with Rodriquez as a teammate, Jeter and the Yankees won one World Series.

Rodriguez had extraordinary talent … but wasn’t a winner.

I have a real time example of talent that doesn’t equal success with my hometown baseball team. I have been a San Francisco Giants fan since the team moved here from New York in 1958. Endured years of second place finishes to the Los Angeles Dodgers and celebrated our three World Series titles in a five-year span beginning in 2010.

Last year, a young Giants team was overachieving and made a late season trade with the Boston Red Sox to bring the expected offensive pop promised to be provided by Rafael Devers. After the trade, the Giants dropped like a rock and the Red Sox went on to make a surprise appearance in the American League Playoffs.

When the trade was made, the media reported that the Giants got the best of the trade. But Boston was content to rid themselves of Devers unwillingness to play the position his organization was requesting he do.

I noticed that the last place Giants did not have their record get better when Devers was added to their roster. His glaring lack of team objectives was on full display last week when late in the game and his team trailing by a run he balked at allowing a pinch runner to replace him while representing the tying run in the ninth inning. First year Giants Manager Tony Vitello sent speedster Tony Vitello into pinch run for the pedestrian speed possessed by Devers.

Instead of slapping his teammate's hand and cheering him to score the tying run, Devers waved off the coach's decision and stayed on first. It took multiple times to let Devers know he was not ruling this situation, and the umpire had to intervene before Cox finally replaced the disgruntled runner.

Now, in the succeeding days, Devers would apologize and call it a misunderstanding. But his lack of doing what the team wants and needs, and challenging his manager, was on full display. I’m certain that it appears in other areas that bring his team down … at least that is what the record illustrates.

While Rodriguez and Devers are clear examples of talent not adding up to team success, there are some athletes clearly on the other side of that equation. Players that exceed even their talent in generating wins.

None more so than Tom Brady. A sixth-round draft choice with average speed and no discernible superior physical skills that trumped his competition, Brady was the biggest winner of all. He parlayed his pedestrian speed and low draft pick into winning more Super Bowls than any league franchise. For the record, Brady guided the New England Patriots to all six of the Super Bowl wins and added a seventh to his sterling record by beating Patrick Mahomes and his Kansas City Chiefs in Roman Numeral LV.

And Mahomes, he’s a winner too. In his eight seasons as the Kansas City Chiefs starting quarterback, he has guided the team to the AFC West title seven times. He has participated in five Super Bowls and won the Vince Lombardi Trophy three times.

This year could prove to be a huge challenge for the Chiefs. Mahomes is coming off a severe injury suffered late last season and Kansas City seems to have developed weaknesses on both sides of the ball. This will routinely happen to a team that maintains a level of excellence for a decade or more and doesn’t get the benefit of high draft choices to restock their roster.

But, while the Chiefs appear for a lot of reasons to be headed to a down period, they have Mahomes. When he’s healthy the team, like the Patriots with Brady, can’t be counted out.