How Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes’ robust career stacks up with NFL legends
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Super Bowl LVIII MVP Patrick Mahomes continues to add to his monumental NFL career as the Kansas City Chiefs quarterback, and he’s only 28 years old.
NFL quarterback legacies are judged heavily on playoff wins and Super Bowl rings. Mahomes has already collected three Lombardi Trophies and currently holds the highest playoff win percentage in the history of his position at 83.3%.
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CHASING GREATNESS
The Chiefs quarterback joins Troy Aikman, Terry Bradshaw, Tom Brady and Joe Montana as the only starting quarterbacks to ever win three or more Super Bowls.
Brady totaled a record seven Super Bowl rings over his career and won his first three by the age 27 with the New England Patriots. Mahomes is right behind him as the second-youngest QB to notch a third championship.
Montana and Bradshaw finished their Hall of Fame careers off with four Lombardis each.
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Montana won his second ring at 28 years old as a San Francisco 49er in 1984. Bradshaw captured his second as a 27-year-old Pittsburgh Steeler in the midst of the most dominant dynasty in a single decade when his team went on to win a total of four Super Bowls by the end of the 1970s.
A 29-year-old Aikman got his third and final Super Bowl ring with the Dallas Cowboys in 1995.
Of the five quarterbacks already mentioned, Mahomes and Brady are the only two to win a Super Bowl before their 25th birthdays. Only Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger has secured a ring at a younger age (among starters) by winning Super Bowl XL at just 23 years old.
MVP AWARDS MATTER
Regular season and Super Bowl MVPs are awards NFL historians use to critique a quarterback’s greatness.
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Mahomes joins Brady and Montana as the only three quarterbacks to ever win three or more Super Bowl MVPs.
The Chiefs QB has won the honor in all three championship runs (Super Bowl LIV, Super Bowl LVII and Super Bowl LVIII). Mahomes has tied Montana while Brady holds the record with five Super Bowl MVPs.
The regular season NLF MVP conversation brings more quarterbacks into the mix. Mahomes currently holds two while Baltimore Ravens QB Lamar Jackson is the only other current NFL player to win it twice. Jackson added his second for the 2023 season.
NFL great Peyton Manning leads all quarterbacks with five MVP awards. He won four with the Indianapolis Colts and the fifth in 2013 with the Denver Broncos in a season he finished with 5,477 yards and 55 touchdowns through the air, both NFL records.
Aaron Rodgers sits in second by himself with four regular season MVP awards, all with the Green Bay Packers. Brady, Brett Favre and Johnny Unitas each hold three MVPs. Favre won the award three years in a row with the Packers (’95, ’96 and ’97).
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Unitas won his with the Baltimore Colts and two of them came before the NFL-AFL merger that launched the “Super Bowl era” we’re still in today.
Mahomes won his first MVP at 23 years old, the second youngest to ever do it behind Jackson. The Chief nabbed his second at 27 years old in 2022, matching Favre and now Jackson as the only three QBs to win the prestigoius award before the age of 28.
Mahomes and Jackson are currently tied with Montana, Steve Young, Joe Namath and Kurt Warner with two career MVP awards.
Steve Young continued Montana’s benchmark with the 49ers in the ’90s while Warner won his awards two years apart with the St. Louis Rams at the turn of the century. Namath won both of his MVPs prior to the Super Bowl era with the AFL’s New York Jets.
RECORD BOOKS
Mahomes is fourth all-time for passing yards in a season behind Manning (5,477), Drew Brees (5,476) and Brady (5,316). Kansas City’s quarterback dealt 5,250 yards in 2022, the first and only time Mahomes led the league in passing yards so far in his career.
Brees only has one Super Bowl and one Super Bowl MVP to his name and failed to notch a regular season MVP, but he’s led the league seven times in regular season passing yards with the New Orleans Saints.
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Mahomes ranks tied for second all time for passing touchdowns in a season. He and Brady both threw for 50 scores behind Manning’s record 55. Brady was 30 when he accomplished that feat while Mahomes did it in his first season as a starter at 22 years old.
As for career stats, Mahomes is still working his way up the record books.
He currently ranks 39th in career passing touchdowns with 219 and 65th in career passing yards at 28,424. He will soon pass Hall of Famer Len Dawson as the Kansas City Chiefs’ all-time passing leader for yards and touchdowns.
There’s still plenty of time for Mahomes, who’s heading into his eighth year to reach any number of the milestones he’s still chasing set by the likes of Brady, Manning and others.
Coming off back-to-back Super Bowls, he’s well on his way to being considered one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time.
