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Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes is off to a historic start to his NFL career.
The 27-year-old has already won two Super Bowls, two Super Bowl MVP awards, two NFL MVP awards and last year he led the NFL in passing touchdowns as well as passing yards, setting an NFL record with 5,614.
His career passer rating of 105.7 is the highest in NFL history for QBs who have thrown at least 1,500 passes. His average of 303 passing per game is also the highest of any quarterback in NFL history.
Needless to say, should he keep up a similar pace for the rest of his career he will be a lock for the Pro Football Hall of Fame (if he isn’t already).
All that being said, everyone needs to slow their roll with all of the Tom Brady comparisons.
At least according to Patrick Mahomes.
During a recent interview with Albert Breer of SI.com, Mahomes said, “I’ve had a great start. I’ve been put in a great situation early in my career. Not a lot of guys get to be put in this type of situation. But I have a long ways to go.
“I know I’m going into Year 7, but Tom did it until he was 45 years old. I’m 27, so I know there’s a long ways to go before I can even be put in that conversation. I just got to continue to work and get better year in and year out.
“If you come back to me in 10 years, I might be able to have this conversation a little bit better with you.”
One of the next steps Mahomes is taking to follow in Tom Brady’s giant footsteps towards putting his face on the NFL’s Mount Rushmore of quarterbacks is to pick the brain of his new backup Blaine Gabbert.
“Talking to Blaine, who’s been with Tom for the last few years now, to see how advanced Tom was, it’s just knowing that I can get there one day. I just got to continue to work and ask Coach [Andy] Reid questions, ask Blaine questions,” Mahomes said. “It just makes the game a lot easier when you can plan, and you know exactly what a defense is gonna do. Every year I come back, I want to take that next step on the mental side of the game.
“He said that he always had an answer,” Mahomes continued. “There’s sometimes, even to this day, you get into a coverage, you just don’t see it. You’re like, I think … maybe. Luckily for me, I’ve been able to scramble and make plays happen. To be able to, presnap, always have an answer and make the game even easier? This is a hard game where defenses are doing a lot of different stuff. You rarely saw Tom get tricked.
“That’s where I want to get to, instead of having to rely on scrambles. That all looks cool, but I want to be able to have the answer even before the snap of the ball.”
If he can do all of that, perhaps Mahomes will be able to match Tom Brady’s seven Super Bowl wins, five Super Bowl MVP awards, and three NFL MVPs. Then we can talk.