Kansas City Chiefs star quarterback Patrick Mahomes captured his third championship on Sunday in a 25-22 overtime victory over the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl LVIII. This puts Mahomes into a very rare class of quarterback; only three quarterbacks have more than three Super Bowl championships.
With that in mind, many have been putting him in the conversation for potentially being the best quarterback in NFL history, a claim most have given to Tom Brady after his illustrious career came to an end.
At 28 years of age, Mahomes has plenty of time left in his career to rival some of Brady’s big accolades, whether that be his seven Super Bowl championships or his individual statistics.
Let’s take a look at what Mahomes needs to do by the end of his career to surpass Brady in the eyes of most as the greatest quarterback of all time.
Continued team success
As Patrick Mahomes has proclaimed ahead of this year’s Super Bowl, this Chiefs team is now very clearly a dynasty that rivals the Patriots teams of the early 2000s, thanks to their third Super Bowl championship in the last five seasons.
Brady, of course, famously got out to the hottest start of any quarterback in NFL history in terms of team success, winning three Super Bowls in his first five seasons.
While Mahomes falls a bit short of this, he has gotten to four Super Bowls, winning three of them in his first seven years in the NFL, fairly comparable to Brady.
Brady has the greatest career longevity of any quarterback ever with his 23 seasons in the NFL. But if Mahomes can rival Brady’s career Super Bowl championships in fewer years than Brady, Mahomes does have a very clear argument to surpassing Brady in the G.O.A.T. debate.
Chiefs three-peat next season
The Chiefs and Mahomes have the chance to do something that has never been done before, securing three straight Super Bowl championships in as many seasons with a win in the big game next year.
This would give this Chiefs team a very strong argument for being the greatest team ever, which would ultimately be a huge feather in Mahomes’ cap in the G.O.A.T. argument over Brady when it’s all said and done.
Surpass Brady in AP MVP awards
If there’s one criticism around Brady’s resume throughout his 23-year NFL career, it may just be that he only received three AP MVP awards.
To put this into perspective, Peyton Manning received five AP MVP awards over the course of his 17-year career in the NFL. This presents the argument that someone like Manning was perhaps a more talented quarterback than Brady and just had less help around him on his team.
Mahomes has received two AP MVP awards thus far, an impressive feat this early on in his career. If he’s able to at least surpass Brady with four MVPs by the time his career is over, his argument for being the G.O.A.T. would certainly be boosted.
This along with the team success he has already had, and you have a very real argument on your hands for Mahomes having every right to the claim of being a better quarterback than Brady.
