As is the case basically half the time, Tom Brady is back in the Super Bowl. This time, he’s there with a new team, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. That means he has as many NFC championships in one try as Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, and Matt Ryan each have in their own dozen-plus attempts.
We all thought we might be finally rid of this guy, once he left Bill Belichick’s New England Patriots. But it turns out that adding a steady, capable, and alarmingly healthy veteran to a team with a good coaching staff, a good defense, and good offensive talent can work quite well, especially with conference rivals New Orleans and Green Bay imploding along the way.
Brady is 43 years old. He’s said he wants to play until he’s 45. Reaching a Super Bowl without Belichick, and maybe winning it, has got to be the last major milestone in his milestone-riddled career. There’s a post-Brady future on the horizon. I think. Right?
But it’s not like the NFL’s going to stop orbiting around a single quarterback once Brady is gone. Facing Brady’s team this time is reigning Super Bowl MVP Patrick Mahomes, who’s had arguably the most absurd three-year debut in American team sports history. Every few weeks, a new Mahomes stat makes you wonder if he’s going to end up tripling his predecessors, or merely doubling them.
This offseason, the Kansas City Chiefs signed Mahomes to a 10-year, $503 million deal, the biggest contract in sports history. In case that wasn’t a clear enough signal, the Chiefs’ franchise quarterback announced the news by tweeting, “We’re chasing a dynasty.”
Taken literally, that means both attempting to construct one while also pursuing the current one. Since Brady had already left the Patriots at the time of that contract, this entire season, if you like storylines, was actually about Mahomes’ Chiefs stalking Brady’s Bucs.
Win or lose against Brady in this year’s Super Bowl, there’s every reason to believe Mahomes will be back. Quite possibly several times. Maybe even a Brady-ish amount of times. There’s a real chance Super Bowl 55 is a handoff (sports term) from one generation’s championship mainstay to the next.
It’s a rare thing to already know who’ll be the league’s biggest star as soon as the league’s current biggest star is gone. That’s the easy part. The more difficult question, as always, is how to define greatness. Does GOAT mean winner-est winner? Best athlete? Most consistently excellent for the longest time? Biggest numbers? All of the above? Something else?
For a while, Brady’s contemporary in the QB GOAT debate was Peyton Manning, who usually had bigger numbers and more obvious talents, but fewer rings. Then it became the incredible and efficient Aaron Rodgers, although Rodgers has endured and/or caused more drama while staying with Green Bay than Brady did while leaving New England. Brady’s had his enormous seasons, including three MVP trophies, but his case is simple: rings, rings, and more rings. It’s hard to think of many unbelievable Brady highlights, but it’s easy to marvel at his unmatchable number of good plays in big games.
The case for someone like Manning or Rodgers takes more and more work by the year. Look at this throw. Look at that decision. Study these numbers, and pore over this footage. Let’s talk about context, from injuries to roster problems to incompetent coaches to bad luck. This side must also note how many of Brady’s biggest wins could’ve easily gone the other way, maybe even including this NFC championship against Rodgers, when the Packers chose a late field goal over letting their future Hall of Fame QB try for a touchdown.
Anyone still arguing for a non-Brady quarterback can construct a fine house of cards, held together by the most lovingly selected nuance. For most people, this house will then be crushed by RINGZ. And as a veteran of the Emmitt Smith (championships and longevity) vs. Barry Sanders (astounding human magnificence) wars, I’m confident there will remain holdouts, no matter how many titles Brady accumulates by the end.
Unless one player can become something like the best of both worlds.
Mahomes’ career ceiling is so high it’s almost impervious to hyperbole. Barring retirement or a major misfortune, we already know he’s gunning not just for the Hall of Fame, but for the Brady echelon. “If he can keep this up for 15 more years or so, he’ll have all the records” is the kind of statement that should get you laughed out of any argument, but in Mahomes’ case it’s not laughable. We might have a single player with talent like Rodgers’, command like Manning’s, and flair for the moment like Brady’s. The biggest test might be whether Mahomes has anything like Brady’s stubbornness in the face of Father Time.
That’s how good Mahomes is: He’s 25 years old, yet to reckon with his place in history we already have to talk about him as an eventual old man, to imagine how much his game might change by the time he’s 40 (if the concept of “games” even exists that long).
This isn’t exactly a prediction, but there is a 2040s scenario in which most of the millennium’s Super Bowls have featured either Brady or Mahomes or both of them. That would mean that four decades of NFL history end up being dominated by just two guys. (And, you know, their collective hundreds of really good teammates.)
It’s possible, in our 2040 world, that Mahomes has topped Brady’s career passing yardage record, and done so while also piling up more no-look, off-balance, scrambling highlights than Rodgers, Brett Favre, Lamar Jackson, Drew Brees’ various sons, or anybody else.
Just imagine. A single player having both the most rings and the best stats and the best highlights. If Brady’s on-field production makes him something like football’s Bill Russell, the winner of all winners, then Mahomes could become football’s Michael Jordan.
You know, the guy who finally resolves the GOAT debate for … OK, realistically no time at all.
Originally Posted by smithandrew051:
It’s going to be funny in 15 years when old men are trying to convince guys in their 30’s that Brady was better than Mahomes.
Just imagine the difference between those two career highlight reels. Hell, watch their career highlight reels right now.
“But Brady was smarter!” Uh huh
Mahomes will crush his statistics and probably have 4-5 rings. The rings will be hard to catch, but the AFC is wide open for Mahomes.
Also one of them wasn't an incestuous pedophile. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Detoxing:
Mahomes can surpass Brady as the GOAT if he has 3-5 Rings, but a near 100% winning percentage in the SB.
You see the same argument flesh out with Jordan vs Lebron.
Lebron got to more, but Jordan won them when he got there.
If the Chiefs win next Sunday would it surprise anyone if the Chiefs were to rattle off a 3 peat or even a 4 peat? Mahomes/Hill/Kelce are in their primes and on a different level than the rest of the league. Reid is quite possibly the best offensive mind ever. If Mahomes has four Super Bowl titles by his 27th birthday he will get to six by the end of his career.
If the Bucs win and Brady grabs his seventh just end the discussion. [Reply]
Another legacy record at stake is the head to head record that is currently 2-2 and its highly unlikely that there will be a 6th meeting to square the ledger. [Reply]
if Mahomes continues at his current rate of play, he'll eclipse Brady's total yards passing in about 13-15 years. And his TD total in 12 years. Of course, he probably won't, so it'll take a couple more seasons maybe, but all of Brady's records are vulnerable as far as Mahomes is concerned. [Reply]
Originally Posted by ForeverIowan:
If the Chiefs win next Sunday would it surprise anyone if the Chiefs were to rattle off a 3 peat or even a 4 peat? Mahomes/Hill/Kelce are in their primes and on a different level than the rest of the league. Reid is quite possibly the best offensive mind ever. If Mahomes has four Super Bowl titles by his 27th birthday he will get to six by the end of his career.
If the Bucs win and Brady grabs his seventh just end the discussion.
They just have to keep drafting well year in and year out and they will be a dynasty. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Wallcrawler:
Hes not winning 7. He shouldnt have 6. He escaped Mahomes in that 2018 title game, after his GAME LOSING interception was negated because Dee Ford couldn't handle the complexity of lining up correctly. Went on to barely eek out a win in the SUPERBORE against a Rams team we would have blown out.
He gets beaten at home by Mahomes the following regular season on his way to his final pass in New England being picked in a playoff loss. He escapes the revenge of Mahomes through sheer ineptitude.
Brady flees the AFC. He knows what time it is. He knows he has no shot at getting past Mahomes with the Cheatriots.
Goes on to lose to Mahomes at home with his new team, enjoying a taste of how it feels to never get tbe ball back at the end, but goes on to the playoffs and manages to defeat the decrepit shell of Drew Brees, and then survives THREE terrible interceptions in the second half of NFCCG.
Aaron Rodgers melted down and Matt Lafleur was a coward/retard kicking a fg down 8 late. Brady manages the one first down needed to win the game without throwing another pick.
So now he's in the Superbowl, at home, and the Chiefs are coming.
There's nowhere left to run, Tom Brady. Its time to settle the score for 2018.
You will go down in flames as another chapter in the legend of Patrick Mahomes II. People will begin to say that you lost almost as many Superbowls as you won.
If you're lucky, maybe Mahomes will stop by your locker room and offer a few words after hoisting the Lombardi for a second straight year.
I will never forgive the Falcons and Seahawks coaches for bungling those two Super Bowls to Brady and Belichick. They should be 4-5 in Super Bowls. We wouldn't have to listen to this GOAT shit all the time.
I understand they also lost close games to the Giants and Eagles. However, I see a difference between losing a close game and having a game handed to you by the worst stupidity ever displayed in a football game. [Reply]
Asking this question on a Chiefs forum will give a slight bias. We can all admit that.
This SB will mean a lot in that you can always say one beat the other.
Brady seems to lift the players around him and it esp shows in the Bucs team. Read what those teammates are saying about Tom. You can also say look how the Patriots performed this year without Tom. The fact is things can be argued from every different angle.
Mahomes does the same with his teammates. The Browns should've been able to win that game but the Chiefs players put themselves on the line to perform because they wanted to because Mahomes. There is an element that can't be drafted/taught/coached in those moments. IF you say the Bucs only won against the Packers because of their defense then you have to say the same for Mahomes vs the Browns. [Reply]