After the amazing year by Mahomes, it made me wonder. Was this THE best ever season by any KC professional athlete in history?
Note, this covers the Chiefs and the Royals. One may want to raise Tom Watson in this and yes, he did win a pair of majors in both 1977 and 1982, but we're talking best individual season by a player on a professional sports team.
All due respect to DT's 20 sack season in 1990, Priest Holmes tremendous seasons in 2002 & 2003, Christian Okoye's NFL rushing best 1989 season, Joe Montans's memorable 1993 season or cripes, Larry Johnson's 2006 season, nobody had a better season than 2018 Patrick Mahomes. The crazy thing is if he stays healthy, he should have even better seasons than this year - heck, this season may not even rank in his Top 5 seasons when it's all said and done!
(I wasn't around for the Stram Era Chiefs but I don't think anyone had a season like 2018 Mahomes. Old timers feel free to chime in...)
So we go across the parking lot to the Royals. There was 2009 Zach Grienke. Not good enough. 1989 Bret Saberhagen, 1985 Bret Saberhagen? Good ones, but Mahomes was better. Maybe a 1987 Kevin Seitzer or a 1977 Al Cowens? Who are we kidding - it's not even close.
There's only ONE player who can really go toe to to toe with Mahomes and that's George Brett. Which season can compare to 2018 Mahomes? Well he did have awesome 1976, 1979, 1985 and 1990 seasons. Other than 1985, none of those other seasons could beat that. 1985 may have been Brett's best season overall, especially with it ending in a World Series Championship that he pretty much carried the Royals on his back to glory. His numbers were excellent but compare it to 2018 Mahomes and it falls short - not by much, but it does.
However, there was the 1980 Brett season - a season that was (like Mahomes this year) completely unreal.
A lot of you were not alive for that magical year and some of you may not even follow baseball that much, but let me tell you. It was off the charts amazing and the only thing comparable to 2018 Mahomes. Dare I say, it can be argued that 1980 Brett was even better than 2018 Mahomes.
Consider these numbers:
Brett finished at .390, leading the major leagues in average, on-base percentage (.454) and slugging percentage (.664). His 1.118 OPS was more than 100 points better than anyone else's that season.
And though he didn't hit .400 ...
• He hit .437 with 118 hits and six strikeouts in 270 at-bats against right-handed pitching.
• From May 30 to August 30 (a stretch that included a stint on the DL), Brett hit .470 (!) with 116 hits in 61 games (in which the Royals went 46-15). He hit .494 in the month of July.
• He hit .469 with 61 hits and five strikeouts with runners in scoring position.
• He hit .421 in the first five innings of games.
• He hit .425 with 22 RBIs in 10 games against the Yankees. That was foreshadowing for the postseason, when his three-run home run against Rich Gossage in Game 3 of the ALCS helped put the Royals into the World Series for the first ever time.
Those numbers are freaking ridiculous!
Mahomes by comparison had the 5,097 yards and 50 TD's passing (52 overall when you factor in the rushing TDs), Include the playoffs and he threw for 53 TD's and ran in 3 more.
The Chiefs offense scored 66 TD's in the regular season and 8 more in the playoffs for 74 TD's (that averages to more than 4 TD's PER GAME).
Twelve different Chiefs players caught at least 1 TD pass from Mahomes.
Mahomes only turned the ball over 16 times (12 picks, 4 fumbles) for the entire season including playoffs. That's 18 games, less than 1 a game.
Mahomes threw for at least 300 yards a total of 10 times this season. He had over 300 combined yards another 3 times. In the other 5 games, his lowest combined yardage total was 246 yards.
Both Brett and Mahomes led their teams to Divisional Championships.
Both Brett and Mahomes exorcised demons in the postseason (Brett finally overcoming the Yankees postseason jinx, Mahomes overcoming the Arrowhead playoff jinx and the Colts playoff jinx all in one).
Both Brett and Mahomes fell short in their quest to win a Championship but not by lack of trying (Brett batted .375 in the World Series and hit a HR in his very first home at bat, Mahomes put up 24 4th quarter points in the AFC Championship Game).
It makes for a fun argument, where there's really no right answer - just total dominance by what will be the two most popular professional athletes in Kansas City sports history?
If you had to choose one, who would you say had the best ever season?
Originally Posted by Rain Man:
Otis Taylor has 1,297 receiving yards in a 14-game season. That equates to 1,482 yards today, which would barely beat Tyreek's 2018 season for the best Chiefs receiving season ever. And he did it in the era of bump and run where the offensive linemen couldn't hold. He averaged 22.4 yards per catch.
Originally Posted by ChiefFanForHire:
Holmes broke the TD record on a team that had a better record, back when defensives were still sort of allowed to play defense.
Holmes beats both.
Better record but still couldn’t win a playoff game...
2018 Chiefs=best KC team since the merger.
Also, Holmes was good but what defensive rule changes have made it easier to run the ball? [Reply]
Originally Posted by ChiefFanForHire:
Holmes broke the TD record on a team that had a better record, back when defensives were still sort of allowed to play defense.
Holmes beats both.
no effing way
not with that OL, and not with what LJ did immediately thereafter [Reply]
Originally Posted by ChiefFanForHire:
Holmes broke the TD record on a team that had a better record, back when defensives were still sort of allowed to play defense.
Holmes beats both.
Holmes was more impressive in 2002 than 2003. I think AV has it right. Go back and look at those stats, and you'll see that Holmes had 24 total TD's, 1600 rushing yards plus his highest scrimmage yards totals (I believe over 2200). He did all of this in 14 games after missing the final 2 with a hamstring injury.
I think Clayton is right. That line REALLY helped Holmes. It was the best line I've ever seen in my life. To me, it was more impressive than the 90's Dallas lines in that the early noughts Chiefs OL was able to BOTH blow you off the ball as well as finesse you. They blocked more plays perfectly than I've ever seen a team accomplish on a regular basis.
AV and WAR do try to account for different league circumstances by using league averages for that season as their baseline for comparison. They aren't perfect, but are pretty much the best we currently have to make such comparisons. [Reply]
One thing that surprised me is that Marino's 1984 didn't rank higher. AV puts Marino's 1984 at 21, which is behind Mahomes' 22 AV season last year.
The second highest TD pass total that year was 32 (behind Marino's record book shattering 48) by Dave Krieg, who also threw a today unfathomable 24 INTs. Marino led the league in passer rating at 108. Joe Montana was second at 102 (with 28 TDs, 10 INTs and 3,600 yards).
Marino, however, had amazing pass blocking in that he was sacked only 13 times. Mahomes got sacked 26 times, and anyone who watched the games knows he evaded quite a few sacks with his mobility and playmaking. Marino was fabulous at making guess miss, but he was nowhere near as mobile as Mahomes. [Reply]
Comparing hitting a 95mph/excellent junk thrown baseball on a regular daily basis to reading a defense and throwing a football in a tight window while 300lb+ guys are trying to kill you both of which are difficult to do. And why I say apples to oranges. Both were great seasons for sure.:-)
Now with that said, I have not been this excited about a professional KC athlete since George Brett until the emergence of Mahomes.:-) [Reply]
Originally Posted by Ebolapox:
Brett sat a ton of games down the stretch to maintain the batting average. Mahomes didn’t. End of argument for me.
Edit: stupid autocorrect
I'd go with Mahomes.
But Brett didn't sit to protect the average.
He injured his right thumb and missed 9 or 10 games in early/mid September.
The only games he missed "down the stretch" was the first game of a DH vs the Angels on 09/17. Still have the scorecard.I was there and I was pissed that Jim Frey held him out. I mean I paid $2.00 for a GA seat that day. But he played game two and went 2-5.
Jim Frey then held him out of game 162 in Minnesota.
Incredible season.
Like Brett did in 1980, Mahomes brought me so much joy. Hard to even describe. And I expect he'll give us all the ultimate joy, like Brett did in 85. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Best22:
Winning in 1985 and 2015 easily tops anything from 1980
I hear ya....but growing up, watching the yankees break our heart year after year after year.... 1980 was an exorcism, and one could argue, 1985 and 2015 both were a bit more subdued, given the big leads in the clinching games. Those moments were amazing....but i always come back to the shot off gossage.
