Patrick Mahomes Becomes The 10th Player To Win NFL MVP At Least Twice. Oh, And His Prime Years Are Still Ahead Of Him
For Patrick Mahomes to already be in this sort of rarefied air is almost unbelievable. After just five years as an NFL starting quarterback in which he's hosted a Conference Championship game every single postseason, Mahomes appears to only be getting started.
Even if Mahomes doesn't match or eclipse Tom Brady's seemingly insurmountable seven Super Bowl rings, he may go down as the greatest quarterback of all-time statistically-speaking.
Some of it is the NFL's rules continuing to favor the offense. The sport has evolved so much even in the past decade or so. A 17th regular-season game helps Mahomes in his pursuit of any passing accolade you throw out there. But the numbers and championships will come. We're getting to a point where, in an era of excellent AFC QBs, Mahomes is a considerable step ahead of the rest of the elite young passers.
The Chiefs superstar is putting so much pressure on the likes of my guy Joe Burrow, Josh Allen and even Justin Herbert to deliver a Lombardi Trophy. That's going to be tough as hell if the AFC Championship Game continues to be in Kansas City on an annual basis.
What's crazy is, the AFC West was supposed to be this stacked division in 2022 and many predicted the Chiefs would take a step back — or even miss the postseason entirely! Yeah not so much. You see that Mahomes lost Tyreek Hill, did not care in the slightest, and proceeded to put up a record number of total yards for a season.
Just when you think this man has reached his ceiling and that defenses will figure out his often improvisational style, he becomes more sophisticated, better from the pocket and continues to enjoy continuity of an all-time brilliant offensive mind as his head coach in Andy Reid. Combine all those elements with Mahomes' literal generational arm talent, and it's just about the most perfect situation you could dream up for your NFL franchise.
Pretty cool to see the likes of Chiefs superfan Paul Rudd and many of Mahomes' teammates congratulate him on his latest MVP accolade.
Super Bowl Sunday represents a chance for Mahomes to cement himself as a legit top-five quarterback of all-time. ALREADY. I know that's almost stupid to say but just look at what he's done. If he overcomes that historic Eagles pass rush and beats the piss out of Philly on a bum ankle, it'd be the stuff of legends.
Seriously you could put Mahomes' five-year run up against any of the greats and to me he's only sitting behind Tom Brady, Peyton Manning and Joe Montana. Make an argument all you want for Aaron Rodgers. He's come up so small in the playoffs so many times in recent years. His numbers don't look bad, but then why does the four-time MVP Rodgers not have more to show for it? Can only blame bad defenses so many times.
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That wasn't meant to be a stray fired off at Rodgers, who after all, won back-to-back MVPs before this season. His case is meant to emphasize how unusually great Mahomes has been in the biggest spots of his career. Even with a bad half in the Super Bowl he won, running for his life in the Super Bowl he lost and a second-half meltdown against the Bengals to lose last year's AFC crown, Mahomes is still 10-3 in the postseason with 32 TD passes (plus five rushing), only 7 INTs and a 106.1 passer rating with 300 yards passing per game.
For context: Manning had 43 total TDs (three rushing) in 27 playoff starts. In less than half the amount of games, Mahomes has accounted for only five fewer touchdowns than The Sheriff.
As long as Mahomes is making magic, the rest of the AFC save for maybe Joey B. and Cincinnati will struggle to get past the Chiefs.
Twitter @MattFitz_gerald/TikTok