Patrick Mahomes Doesn't Need 7 Rings To Dethrone Tom Brady As G.O.A.T. | Bobby Burack

Patrick Mahomes has started six seasons in the NFL. He has appeared in six AFC Championship Games and four Super Bowls in that span. He has won three Super Bowls, three Super Bowl MVPs, and two league MVPs.

Mahomes does not have a peer. Josh Allen, Joe Burrow, and Lamar Jackson are great players. They are not in Mahomes’ league. 

The only apt debate regarding Mahomes, six years in, is where he places historically.

Tom Brady, with seven Super Bowl rings, is universally considered the greatest QB of all time. No honest person would dispute that Brady deserves that billing.

But it’s that precise billing that Mahomes now chases. 

Monday, Will Cain asked me on his Fox News Digital show about Mahomes’ quest to unseat Brady. Will and I eventually came to a consensus: Mahomes does not need to win seven Super Bowls to surpass Brady.

Let’s first rank Mahomes currently.

Patrick Mahomes already has more Super Bowl wins and playoff wins than immortals like Peyton Manning, John Elway, Aaron Rodgers, and Brett Favre.

Troy Aikman is tied with Mahomes in Super Bowl wins, three. Terry Bradshaw is ahead at four. But Mahomes is objectively a better player than Aikman and Bradshaw. Even they would – probably – admit so.

That leaves us with one bulge between Mahomes and Brady: Joe Montana.

Mahomes has not yet dethroned Montana. Montana was the consensus G.O.A.T. until Brady won his 5th Super Bowl in 2014-15.  Montana is 4-0 in Super Bowls, having never thrown an interception. That’s Jordan-like.

Yet the foundation of whatever lead Montana holds over Mahomes is cracking. 

Mahomes is one playoff win away from tying Montana with 16, trailing only Brady at 35. Safe bet: Mahomes will catch Montana in that category. 

And at 28 years old, odds are he will catch Montana in Super Bowl victories, in which he trails him by only one.

Patrick Mahomes is already the third-best NFL quarterback. He might end up second by the time he turns 30. 

TAMPA - Patrick Mahomes of the Kansas City Chiefs shakes hands with Tom Brady of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers after defeating the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 41-31 at Raymond James Stadium on October 2, 2022. (Photo by Douglas P. DeFelice/Getty Images)

That brings us to Brady vs. Mahomes and back to my conversation with Will. 

Mahomes needs to keep winning Super Bowls to pass Brady. But the magic number doesn’t have to be seven, per se. Bill Russell has 11 NBA championships. No one in the know honestly argues he’s better than Michael Jordan, who has six. 

And for good reason: Jordan was better than Russell.

All 30 NBA general managers would take prime Michael Jordan over prime Bill Russell to start a team and take a final shot.

Basketball and football are team sports. Rings matter. They matter a lot. But championship wins do not tell the entire story.

Let’s look at Brady, the player:

Tom Brady never had the strongest arm, the most mobility, or raw physical traits of a John Elway or a Dan Marino.

He made up for his physical limitations via leadership, resilience, wit, and determination. Even the most talented QBs of his era couldn’t compete with Brady in terms of intangibles. 

Mahomes can. 

He proved it on Sunday, overcoming a double-digit deficit for the third time in a Super Bowl – as if there's ice water in his veins. Patrick Mahomes is Aaron Rodgers psychically and Tom Brady mentally. 

Rodgers isn’t holding his composure in this moment; Brady cannot make this play:

If you were to create a player in the lab, it would look awfully similar to Mahomes. 

Secondly, the Tom Brady-Bill Belichick debate only existed because Brady was more Brock Purdy than Patrick Mahomes during his first three Super Bowls. 

He was a game-manager who complimented a great defense and system. 

Of course, Brady grew into being "the guy" later in his career. However, Brady didn’t win his first league MVP until his seventh season as a starter. 

Brady was only the definitive "best quarterback in the NFL" for about three or four of his 23 seasons. 

Even during the 2014-2020 stretch in which Brady won four Super Bowls, few analysts ranked him as the best player in the game, that title mostly belonged to Rodgers and then later Mahomes.

Now, consider this: Patrick Mahomes has been the consensus best quarterback in the NFL since his first season as a starter.

Mahomes has already been "the best QB in the game," albeit an unofficial title, longer than Brady was.

Brady did beat Mahomes twice in the postseason. But it's challenging to use the two matchups as proof of anything individually. 

The first, during Mahomes' first season as a starter, the Chiefs had the Patriots defeated in the AFC Championship Game but for Dee Ford lining up offsides, costing Kansas City the game. The second, the 2021 Super Bowl, Mahomes had no chance behind a depleted offensive line down both starting tackles. 

Those games are mostly a moot point in the debate.

Simply put, Patrick Mahomes is a better player than Tom Brady. He can do more with less. 

He already has. 

Mahomes just led a bunch of mediocre receivers who led the NFL in drops to a Super Bowl victory without his All-Pro left guard against the hardest postseason road to a title ever, based on DVOA of their opponents.

He won last season's Super Bowl with a high-ankle sprain against an Eagles team superior on both sides of the ball. 

Say Mahomes wins six Super Bowls. Or even five. Would NFL teams still take Brady at his peak over Mahomes at his?

Doubtful.

Tony Romo referred to Mahomes as the "Michael Jordan of the NFL" as he threw the walk-off, Super Bowl-winning touchdown on Sunday. The nickname was aptly applied.