Super Bowl: Could Patrick Mahomes be on track to catch Tom Brady, Peyton Manning and Aaron Rodgers? 

With seven Super Bowl titles, the most in NFL history, no one can come close to Tom Brady and his GOAT status yet.

But Patrick Mahomes, in his fifth season as the Kansas City Chiefs’ starting quarterback, could be on his way to at least presenting a challenge and snaring the star as well as NFL veterans Aaron Rodgers and Peyton Manning.

Brady was in familiar territory on Jan. 16 with no one better in NFL history than the Bucs’ quarterback in the postseason, but Tampa Bay and the veteran’s playoff run came to a crashing end in the wild-card round. .

Meanwhile, Rodgers’ Super Bowl hopes came to an end before the playoffs began, as the Green Bay Packers painfully missed the final day of the regular season. And Manning is quite content talking football from his couch on the Manning-cast, rather than playing games these days.

Meanwhile, while he doesn’t have the same level of experience at 27, Mahomes could already be on his way to outshine them all after earning his ticket to Super Bowl LVII against the Philadelphia Eagles.

With their recent playoff performances and the Chiefs’ third Super Bowl appearance in four years on the horizon, the statistics seem to spell a bright narrative for the future.

He threw for two touchdowns against the Cincinnati Bengals in the AFC Championship Game, his fifth straight start, Sunday and when his team needed him most, he rushed five yards and flagged for a late hit to set up Harrison Butker’s 45- . yard game-winning field goal, all on a high ankle sprain.

Mahomes, in just five playoff trips in five league seasons thus far, has posted a 66.7 completion percentage, has thrown for 32 touchdowns and 3,902 yards and has a 106.1 rating.

By comparison, Brady threw for just 20 touchdowns in his first four playoff seasons and 3,217 yards.

Brady has played in more postseason games than any player in NFL history at 48. After this season, he has an 89.8 passer rating, has thrown for 88 touchdowns, and has thrown for 13,400 yards in the playoffs alone.

But on average in the postseason, Brady’s completion rate is 62.5 percent and while he’s won more AFC Championship games than he’s lost, it suggests he’s often had to rely on one team’s performance to recuperate.

Manning during his time with the Indianapolis Colts and Denver Broncos posted a passer rate of 87.4 and a completion rate of 63.2 percent.

Rodgers, though he garnered back-to-back MVP awards last year with the help of the psychedelic drug ayahuasca, has played significantly fewer playoff games than Brady and Manning over his 18-season career, and just nine more than Mahomes. has already accumulated above.

Through 22 games, he has a slightly better passer rating and completion rate than Brady and Manning at 100.1 and 64.7 percent, but still can’t match Mahomes.

In his 13 postseason games so far, Mahomes is averaging 300 yards per game and 21 yards more than Brady’s average, 29 more than Manning and 32 more than Rodgers.

Plus, Mahomes has just seven interceptions in his 28 touchdowns, meaning his 4.1 touchdown-to-interception ratio absolutely wipes out Brady’s of 2.2 during his playoff career.

The postseason numbers can be pored over ad nauseam, but all players and fans know that there is one thing that means more: the Super Bowl.

Incredible postseason performances can’t mean anything if a player ultimately can’t end his playoff charge with a ring.

The biggest win when it counts the most, and that’s exactly what Brady has done, seven times.

Manning has two Super Bowl victories to his name from the 2006 and 2015 seasons, while Rodgers has just one ring, the same number Mahomes already has.

Mahomes has clinched the one, but he also knows the bitter disappointment of coming so close after the Chiefs’ 2021 loss to Brady’s Bucs. However, he will get another shot at a ring and a chance to level the field and outplay Rodgers in Arizona on February 12.

And it’s not just that all-star trio that Mahomes is catching up to. In fact, he’s already surpassed some NFL Hall of Famers, with more touchdown passes than John Elway, Steve Young, Troy Aikman and Roger Staubach.

Mahomes is already showing that he can match the best in the regular season, too.

Mahomes began his career racking up passing numbers like no other player in NFL history.

Mahomes had his 37th career 300-yard passing game against the LA Chargers on November 20, tying the record for the most 300-yard games in a player’s first seven NFL seasons. Dan Marino, with 37 300-yard games from 1983-1989, has held the record since the 1980s.

This is only Mahomes’ sixth season in the NFL, and he only played in one game as a rookie, which means he has reached 37 300-yard games much faster than Marino. Mahomes had started 73 games in his career before reaching that mark; Marino got his 37th 300-yard game in his 101st career start.

Mahomes then surpassed Marino’s 37 by connecting in four more 300-yard games before the end of the regular season, bringing his total to 41.

Now in his fifth season as the Chiefs’ starting quarterback, over the past four seasons (2018-2021), Mahomes led the league in both passing yards (18,707) and touchdown passes (151).

He has also led the Chiefs to their seventh straight AFC West title after beating the Houston Texans in overtime on December 18 before leading their charge through the playoffs to the AFC Championship crown and a berth. in the Super Bowl.

Even Brady has admitted that he would currently have a hard time replicating what Mahomes is doing in the league.

In his Let’s Go! podcast earlier in the season, Brady said: ‘Then I see other players, say like Patrick Mahomes or today’s Lamar Jackson. I’m like, ‘Shit, I can’t do any of that.’ How did they do that? It surprises me because they play how they play, I don’t see the game the way they see it.’

Mahomes has also drawn comparisons to Brady and Manning from his teammates, most recently from Bengals wide receiver Tyler Boyd.

Boyd compared Mahomes against Cincinnati quarterback Joe Burrow to the Brady-Manning rivalry before the pair clashed during the Bengals’ 27-24 win over Kansas City on Dec. 4.

Mahomes and the Chiefs beat the Bengals in a thrilling AFC Championship game 23-20 in the dying seconds on Sunday.

‘It goes back to that quarterback fight. I look at it as Manning and Brady,’ Boyd said. You can’t stop them. It all comes down to who stands out and takes advantage of their opportunities in units and points. These are the types of games we have to take care of football and not turn it around”

Mahomes has often rejected these comparisons in the past due to the early stages of their careers.

And he has a point, he has a long way to go to match the longevity and success of Brady’s and Manning’s careers, but this could just be the beginning.

Mahomes has a long career ahead of him and says he plays another 11 years, taking it at 38, based on the numbers he’s already released, he could be sitting on around 90 postseason touchdown passes. The current holder of that record, to no one’s surprise, is Brady at 88.

With a SuperBowl victory under his belt at just 27 years old, Mahomes has already shown he has the talent and potential to add more, not just on February 12 but beyond, and could even threaten Brady’s seven.