Patrick Mahomes Is Every Bit On The Tom Brady GOAT Track With Only One Disturbance Of The Matrix
Mike Ehrmann. Getty Images.Clutch your New England clam pearls Bostonians because the fact of the matter is Patrick Mahomes is pretty much dead on the Tom Brady GOAT track.
I heard Dave and Kevin jawing at each other over this on The Rundown so I figured I'd hit the stat books to compare papa GOAT and baby GOAT through their first six years in the league to see where we're at. I did this for a couple reasons. First, that's really the only comparison that can be properly done at this point. Second, it gives me a chance to chirp Dave for the first time. With some luck, I think I can make an impressionable case that leaves Dave with some tough questions rolling around in his head. Namely: "Who the hell is Jeffro?"
But let's get to this. There's something very Matrix-like about Brady and Mahomes. History seems to be repeating itself with Mahomes being the next recursion of Brady. And there's even a Neo figure who tapped into the programming to attempt to break the cycle. Both Brady and Mahomes lurked around their rookie year before bursting onto the scene in year two. Brady won it all, Mahomes fell short. That's where the Neo figure comes into play. If not for Dee Ford lining up so obviously offsides on the Brady pick at the end of the 2018 AFC Championship game, the Chiefs would have won and gone on to crush the hapless Rams in the Super Bowl. No one with a brain can say otherwise. This "glitch" stopped Mahomes from meeting Brady's .500 batting average at winning Super Bowls in his first six seasons. There's simply no other explanation for Dee Ford doing something so "stupid" in such a moment. Yes - I'm saying Dee Ford is Neo.
It goes deeper than that though. Brady was an underrated draft pick that spent his entire career in lock step with a generational acclaimed top pick in Peyton Manning. And Brady went on to dominate this top talent throughout his entire career with the exception of the 2006 season. Only then was Manning finally able to beat Brady in the AFC Championship Game. Well, guess who the next recursion of Peyton Manning is? It's Joe Burrow. Top talent. Dominated Mahomes in regular season but only beat him in one AFC Championship Game. You can count on the Matrix never letting that happen again. Unless another Neo comes along. I have to believe Josh Allen tried in 2021 because there's really no other explanation for the Chiefs dodging all the Bills bullets in that game aside from pre-determined computer programming. Josh Allen is basically the alternative version of Neo where he does literally everything possible yet still dies.
OK some numbers. History suggests that the Matrix may really have reloaded with a better version of the recursion. Let's review some basic stats to not drag this out for each career regular season of V1 (Brady) and V2 (Mahomes):
No disrespect but the difference here is like Windows 11 vs Vista. Things don't get much better for Brady when you look at playoffs only numbers either:
Even if you count playoff byes as a win that would put Mahomes at 18 total games vs 14 for Brady. The thing that's really wild here is that Tom Brady's excellence was always pinned down to his sharpness on the field and ability to make smart calculated plays. Brady only threw passes of 25 yards or more 144 times from his second season to sixth. Mahomes has thrown 243. But Mahomes also has that same mental sharpness and the generational HIM factor to go along with being the flashiest gunslinger in today's game. It's just not fair.
Time will only tell if Mahomes' career arc regresses to the mean or if we've actually just been seeing him at his mean. There's a lot of talent breathing down his neck in the AFC too. There really hasn't been a crop of coming to age quarterbacks blossom since…well… I'd say the early to mid 2000s. Strange.
What else can you really say? There's nothing stopping the Matrix. You can slow it down with a Dee Ford, but it'll Chumbawamba right the fuck back up. The only thing we can say right now is that given between the two of them, you're kidding yourself to say Mahomes isn't the GOAT through six holes.
That goes for you too, Dave!
- Jeffro