NEW ORLEANS — A few years ago, veteran NFL QB Chad Henne cautioned me against making comparisons between Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes any time in the near future.
Henne was right. It was way too soon, even with Mahomes on a torrid pace in Super Bowl appearances. We can talk about whether Mahomes is in the same conversation as the GOAT, who has seven Super Bowl rings. But that’s all it is: chatter. It’s not meaningful. There’s no legitimacy to the argument. Mahomes remains distantly behind Brady.
And on Sunday, Mahomes’ pursuit of Brady took a hit.
To be clear, I’m not saying Mahomes’ legacy took a hit. Super Bowl LIX was more about squandered opportunity.
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The Chiefs‘ 40-22 loss took a fourth Super Bowl win off the table (for now). But more importantly, the Eagles took a three-peat off the table.
“It hurts. It’s gonna hurt for a while,” Mahomes told reporters after the game. “But how can you respond from it? How can you get better? How can you not just be satisfied with getting here? That starts with me.”
Mahomes has three Super Bowl wins, behind Joe Montana and Terry Bradshaw (four). I can comfortably project Mahomes will finish — at least — as the second-greatest quarterback of all time.
But eclipsing Brady? Man, that three-peat would’ve helped.
When looking at the marathon of Mahomes’ pursuit of Brady, we’ll need to think about whether Mahomes might distinguish himself — in the event he gets the same number or fewer Super Bowls than Brady.
Keep in mind that Brady beat Mahomes head-to-head in the Super Bowl (and, before that, the AFC Championship Game). Brady was in the twilight of his career but still not far off his peak. Mahomes was just getting started. But, again, that win for Brady is another bullet point on his résumé for GOAT.
Mahomes has his three Super Bowl wins. Every single one of them is impressive. Brady has more than double what Mahomes has.
That’s what made the three-peat so compelling. It would’ve given Mahomes something that no one else had in the NFL. It would have made him even more comparable to Michael Jordan, arguably the greatest athlete to ever play any team sport. If Mahomes had won on Sunday, he’d be over the halfway hump to Brady — and he’d have something Brady didn’t.
For me, this Chiefs loss was the equivalent of Brady losing the Super Bowl after the Patriots had gone 18-0 — a perfect regular season with a black-mark defeat. I won’t count the losses against the quarterbacks’ greatness. And yet a loss as lopsided as Kansas City’s on Sunday still feels damaging, even when it shouldn’t.
And since we’re doing tallies around big wins and big losses, let’s acknowledge Brady had three Super Bowl losses. But not all defeats are made equally. Mahomes’ Super Bowl losses have been shellackings, with his point-differential sitting at -40 — where Brady’s differential in losses was -15 in his three defeats. Brady always seemed to keep it tight. He finished his Super Bowl career with a +36 differential. Mahomes sits at -23.
And make no mistake, Sunday’s game was the worst one Mahomes has ever played.
Those fourth-quarter touchdowns didn’t make any difference in the game. What mattered was how he played in those opening three quarters. His expected points added per dropback was the worst of his career (-0.62) through three quarters in any game in his pro career.
How did losing Super Bowl LIX impact Patrick Mahomes’ legacy?
Mahomes’ legacy has been a mastery of situational awareness, the ability to command and control games in a way only four or five quarterbacks have ever done. But this performance upended what we thought we knew about Mahomes, whose decision-making was so bad that it makes you wonder whether he looked like this in the rookie season that we never saw.
All arm arrogance. No composure.
“I can’t make bad plays worse, and I think that’s what you saw today,” Mahomes said after the game on Sunday. “There’s times where guys weren’t open, and I need to throw the ball away or check it down and let other guys make plays happen. Sometimes I get in [a spot] where I want to make a big play happen to spark us. That’s what I’ve dealt with with my entire career.”
The Eagles defense forced him to chip away and stay patient for the entire game. But the issue with that approach was that the Eagles were steadily building the lead. Philly’s offense is designed to protect that lead, with Saquon Barkley and Jalen Hurts being the two most efficient weapons in the NFL. Mahomes wanted to inject life into his team before it was too late. But that injection proved fatal.
Eagles receiver A.J. Brown said the Philly defense made Mahomes look “average.” And that’s mostly true. The Eagles generated turnovers and overwhelmed Mahomes in the pocket. He got skittish and did too much scrambling. But it was also Mahomes’ impatience that lost the game.
That — and immaturity.
I didn’t think I’d use that word to describe Mahomes. And perhaps this was merely an outlier game for the Chiefs QB — not a reflection of something bubbling under the surface.
Say what you want about Tom Brady’s mistakes in his Super Bowls, he never looked immature in the ways Mahomes has. Overall, Mahomes has 11 touchdowns (10 passing, 1 rushing) to seven interceptions and one lost fumble in his five Super Bowls. Brady has 21 touchdowns and six interceptions and three lost fumbles in his 10 appearances.
There’s no metric where Mahomes enters the conversation with Brady.
It’s that simple.
Did Super Bowl LIX end the GOAT debate?
I’ll admit that I thought Mahomes would be holding up the MVP trophy this morning — shooing away questions about whether he has a claim to the GOAT title. But he doesn’t have to. Because on Sunday, he didn’t get any closer to Brady (or Montana).
“Any time you lose the Super Bowl, it’s just the worst feeling in the world. It’ll stick with you for the rest of your career. These will be the losses that motivate me to be better,” Mahomes said.
The 29-year-old Mahomes still has plenty of time.
And maybe it’s foolish to doubt Mahomes at this point in his career. It just seems like the 2025 season could be as physically and psychologically difficult as any of Mahomes’ career. Since 2018, Mahomes and the Chiefs have played 21 postseason games, which is 21 more than the Jets, Falcons and Panthers over that same period. In the past three postseasons, Mahomes has played 10 more games than any non-playoff team.
Those aren’t just 10 games. They’re playoff games, the most challenging environment in football. And three of them are the Super Bowl, the most challenging environment in American sports.
Burnout might not be imminent, but it would be totally understandable.
Mahomes didn’t look exhausted, per se, in the most important game of his career. But his team did. And it’s easy to imagine the Chiefs will regress in the year or years to come.
Mahomes’ marathon in pursuit of Brady took a hit on Sunday. Henne was right to tell me — and everyone — to relax, sit back and see what happens. There’s a very real possibility that Brady’s Super Bowl total may not fall for a very, very long time.
Prior to joining FOX Sports as an NFL reporter and columnist, Henry McKenna spent seven years covering the Patriots for USA TODAY Sports Media Group and Boston Globe Media. Follow him on Twitter at @henrycmckenna.
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