Edelman isn’t quite ready to crown Mahomes as the GOAT.
In just his sixth season as an NFL starter, Patrick Mahomes led the Kansas City Chiefs to their third Super Bowl title, adding to his already incredible résumé and legacy.
After defeating the San Francisco 49ers in overtime of Super Bowl LVIII to capture the Chiefs’ third Lombardi Trophy in five years and complete the back-to-back title run, Mahomes instantly vaulted into the conversation of the league’s greatest of all time (GOAT). Tom Brady is pretty widely considered the best quarterback of all time, having won seven Super Bowls, five Super Bowl MVPs, and three NFL MVPs in his illustrious career with the New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Julian Edelman, one of Brady’s favorite targets in New England and a Super Bowl MVP winner himself, said on the Bill Simmons Podcast that Mahomes may be on the right track, but he has to see more from Mahomes before he can consider putting him above Brady in all-time talks.
“They’re playing really good football, you know, but they haven’t really hit a real adverse situation yet,” Edelman said. “Tom did it with three different types of teams. Mahomes, these last couple of years, lost Tyreek Hill and everything, but he still has his safety blanket in Kelce. We got to see how it goes when Kelce leaves and Kelce retires because he’s going to outplay a lot of these guys like Tom did.
“So I think there’s so much of the story that’s unwritten, it’s too early to say, but if he keeps his play up, I mean, he’s putting himself in a good situation to go out there and do some fire with this whole thing, but it’s a little too early for me.”
Like Mahomes, Brady spent his first season in the NFL as a backup before emerging in his second season. After an injury to starter Drew Bledsoe, Brady led the Patriots to his first Super Bowl victory in 2002 before winning titles again in 2004 and 2005. It took Brady and the Patriots a decade to capture another championship, but when they did, they rattled off three more in five years. Brady won his seventh and final Super Bowl in the first of three seasons with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to end his career.
Mahomes sat behind Alex Smith as a rookie before a breakout season in his second year as he won his first MVP while passing for 5,000 yards and 5o touchdowns. In that postseason, Mahomes and the Chiefs lost to Brady’s Patriots in overtime of the AFC Championship Game. The next year, the Chiefs won their first title in 50 years.
Next season, the Chiefs have the opportunity to do something never done before in NFL history: win three consecutive Super Bowls. Doing so would give Mahomes an accolade even Brady never accomplished, which could add further credence to Mahomes’ case of being the greatest to ever do it.
An experienced writer and journalist, Preston Byers currently serves as an associate editor for ClutchPoints and as a staff writer at The Vindicator and Tribune Chronicle, where he covers sports in the Mahoning Valley. Previously, Preston worked as an associate editor for Dot Esports and a site expert for FanSided’s Union and Blue.