Patrick Mahomes didn’t have the best overall statistics among NFL quarterbacks this season. That was Brock Purdy.
Patrick Mahomes didn’t lead the most fourth quarter comebacks. That was Russell Wilson and Geno Smith.
Patrick Mahomes won’t win the NFL’s Most Valuable Player award. That will be Lamar Jackson.
But what the Kansas City Chiefs’ star did in Sunday’s AFC Championship Game was show why he remains the NFL gold standard at the quarterback position.
The Chiefs’ 17-10 victory was another prime example of Mahomes doing what sets him apart from the rest of the league’s quarterbacks. It’s the same thing that guys named Tom Brady and Joe Montana did before him.
Mahomes leads his team to the Super Bowl.
Taking your team to the Super Bowl is the ultimate measuring stick used to determine a quarterback’s greatness.
And in two weeks in Las Vegas, Mahomes will be heading to his fourth Super Bowl in the past five seasons and playing for back-to-back championship rings and his third overall.
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One of the storylines going into the AFC Championship Game was the QB duel between Mahomes and Lamar Jackson, and the latter entered the game with all the advantages.
The game was on his home field at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore, while it was Mahomes’ first-ever AFC title game on the road. The Ravens entered the game looking like a near-unstoppable force, with Jackson as the pre-eminent talent and the game’s No. 1 defense.
The bigger the moment, the better Mahomes seems to play. And he was nearly flawless in the first half, going 20-of-25 passing for 161 yards and one touchdown to stake the Chiefs to a 17-7 lead.
Mahomes went to what always works; he threw to his bread-and-butter player, tight end Travis Kelce nine times in the first half alone.
And the Pro Bowl tight end made one sensational catch after another, including a ridiculous 19-yard TD reception to beat the Ravens’ All-Pro safety, Kyle Hamilton, and put the Chiefs up , 7-0, on their first drive of the day.
After halftime, though, the game became even more of a defensive slugfest than it was before. A late Justin Tucker field in the fourth quarter accounted for the only half’s only points
But by then, Patrick Mahomes had already made his point.
Patrick Mahomes climbing Mount Rushmore of QBs
During the regular season it appeared the Kansas City Chiefs were no close to being a Super Bowl team.
In one season, the Chiefs dropped from first to 15th in the NFL in scoring offense; they were scoring around seven fewer points than they were in 2022. And it wasn’t necessarily Mahomes’ fault.
He was stuck with a group of receivers who were dropping passes at a higher rate than anyone team in the league, and other than Kelce, Mahomes seemed to have no one he could trust.
The Chiefs instead were winning games behind their No. 2 ranked defense, as opposed to the other way around.
Yet on Sunday, it was a combination of the Chiefs’ defense frustrating Lamar Jackson and Mahomes solidifying his status as the present-day king of the QBs.
For the past six incredible seasons, Mahomes has been climbing the Mount Rushmore of NFL quarterbacks, a venerable place where the aforementioned Brady and Montana have previously ascended.
Win again in two weeks, and Mahomes might be joining them there.