sport news Super Bowl: Could Patrick Mahomes be on track to catch Tom Brady, Peyton ... trends now
With seven Super Bowl titles, the most in NFL history, no one can come close to Tom Brady and his GOAT status, yet.
But Patrick Mahomes, in his fifth season as the Kansas City Chiefs starting quarterback, could be on track to at least put up a challenge and catch the star, as well as NFL veterans Aaron Rodgers and Peyton Manning.
Brady was in familiar territory on January 16 with none better in NFL history than the Bucs quarterback in the postseason - but Tampa Bay and the veteran's playoff run came to a crashing end in the wild card round.
Kansas City's Patrick Mahomes (right) could be on track to challenge Tom Brady (left) and Co.
Meanwhile, Rodgers’ Super Bowl hopes came to an end before the playoffs even began as the Green Bay Packers agonizingly missed out on the final day of the regular season. And Manning is quite content talking about football from his sofa on Manning-cast, rather than playing these days.
Meanwhile, although he does not have the same level of experience at age 27, Mahomes could already be on track to eclipsing them all after punching his ticket to Super Bowl LVII against the Philadelphia Eagles.
After his recent playoff performances and the Chiefs' third Super Bowl appearance in four years on the horizon, the statistics seem to spell out a bright narrative for the future.
He threw for two touchdowns against the Cincinnati Bengals in the AFC Championship - his fifth consecutive as a starter - Sunday and when his team needed him most, he scampered for five yards and drew a flag for a late hit to set up Harrison Butker’s 45-yard game-winning field goal - all on a high ankle sprain.
Mahomes led the Chiefs to their third Super Bowl appearance in four years on Sunday
The 27-year-old threw for two touchdowns and crucially scrambled to set up the winning kick
Mahomes, in just five trips to the playoffs in five seasons in the league so far, has recorded a completion percentage of 66.7, has thrown for 32 touchdowns and 3,902 yards and has a rating of 106.1.
In comparison, Brady threw just 20 touchdowns in his first four seasons in the playoffs and 3,217 yards.
Brady has played more postseason games than any player in NFL history with 48. Following this season, he has a passer rating of 89.8, has thrown 88 touchdowns and has thrown for 13,400 yards in the playoffs alone.
But on average in the postseason, Brady's pass completion rate is 62.5 percent and while he has won more AFC Championship games than he has lost, it suggests that he has often had to rely on a team performance to rally through.
Veteran Brady has played more postseason games than any player in NFL history with 48
Brady led the Buccaneers to victory over Mahomes's Kansas City Chiefs at Super Bowl LV
Manning during his time with both the Indianapolis Colts and Denver Broncos registered a passer rate of 87.4 and a completion rate of 63.2 percent.
Rodgers, while achieving back-to-back MVP awards last year thanks to the help of psychedelic drug ayahuasca, has played significantly less games in the playoffs than Brady and Manning across his 18-season career - and only nine more than Mahomes has already racked up.
Peyton Manning won one Super Bowl with the Colts in 2007 and another with the Broncos in 2016
Through 22 games, he does have a slightly better passer rating and completion rate than Brady and Manning with 100.1 and 64.7 percent but it still fails to quite match Mahomes.
In his 13 games in the postseason so far Mahomes has an average of 300 yards per game and 21 yards more than Brady's average, 29 more than Manning and 32 more than Rodgers.
Furthermore, Mahomes has just seven interceptions to his 28 touchdowns meaning his touchdown to interceptions ratio of 4.1 absolutely obliterates Brady's of 2.2 over his playoffs career.
The postseason figures can be examined to death but every player and fan knows there's one thing that
