Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes may have lost twice to Tom Brady in NFL playoffs, but his overall stats at his age suggest he is on pace to match Brady if he can achieve the same consistency.
Patrick Mahomes is not yet ready to compete with Tom Brady in the all-time greatest NFL quarterback rankings, but if he continues at his current pace, all he will have to do is match the seven-time Super Bowl winner for longevity in order to be thrust into the conversation.
The Kansas City Chiefs are favourites to win a third straight Super Bowl but even that would not settle Mahomes’ place at the top of the NFL’s Mount Rushmore of quarterbacks.
Brady won six Super Bowls with the New England Patriots before claiming his seventh with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at the age of 43 in February 2021.
It was a historic victory because it was effectively the moment Brady put to bed the theory that his success in the NFL had solely been caused by the Patriot’s structure under CEO Robert Kraft and head coach Bill Belichick.
Furthermore, it will be remembered for generations to come because of who Brady’s Buccaneers beat in the Super Bowl: namely, Mahomes’ Kansas City Chiefs by a convincing margin of 31-9.
However, it is worth remembering that what sets Brady apart from other quarterbacks is how many times he bounced back at points in his career when his powers were assumed to be on the wane.
Between Super Bowls XXXIX and XLIX, Brady went 10 years without winning one. He thus won his fourth Super Bowl with the Patriots at the age of 37.
Until then, the player widely regarded as the NFL’s greatest quarterback of all time had three Super Bowls. That is precisely how many Mahomes has now throughout the course of his career, having only recently turned 29 months after leading the Chiefs to victory over the San Francisco 49ers.
For those who say head-to-head record in playoffs alone should settle the Brady v Mahomes debate, it is vital to remember what happened in the period between Brady’s third and fourth Super Bowl.
In 2008 and again in 2012, he was denied at the final hurdle by the New York Giants – led by Eli Manning, a quarterback not anywhere close to capable of matching Brady’s legacy.
If, then, one argues that head-to-head results alone should determine a quarterback’s legacy, then one would arrive at the indefensible conclusion that Manning was a better quarterback than Brady by virtue of those two Super Bowl wins.
Clearly, this is not the case. In the end, Brady’s longevity and resilience set him apart from all his competitors.
If Mahomes wants to be compared with Brady in the record books, he ought to take a leaf out of Brady’s book and not worry about head-to-head records against individual competitors, but rather his overall legacy, which when all is said and done will be defined by far more than two matches that did not go his way.
The Chiefs have started strongly in the race to clinch yet another Super Bowl and for now, all Mahomes can do is take them one at a time.
