Can a first-ballot Hall of Famer who’s on the precipice of his fourth title be better than he gets credit for? Patrick Mahomes just might be. We explain why.
Of all the statistics that demonstrate the gulf between a regular NFL quarterback and Patrick Mahomes, this one might be the most jarring: 8 for 9.
Since 2001, NFL QBs have led 170 playoff drives that meet the following criteria:
- Their team trailed by a touchdown or less.
- The drive ended in the final minute of regulation, or later.
- They threw at least one pass.
Where “success” means scoring enough points to tie, lead, or win, quarterbacks are 75 for 170 in these ultimate pressure-cooker situations. Their success rate is 44%.
Tom Brady was 9 for 15, for a long time the only quarterback to have more than five of these opportunities and convert at a rate of better than half. Drew Brees was 5 for 11, Peyton Manning 2 for 7, Ben Roethlisberger 3 for 6, Russell Wilson is 2 for 4, including that one interception 10 years ago.
Then there is Mahomes, lapping everyone: Nine drives, eight successes during the Kansas City Chiefs’ dynastic run.
Only the Cincinnati Bengals in the 2021 season’s AFC championship had a chance to stop Mahomes with a close playoff game on the line and actually did it. Nobody in Mahomes’ time has been in his stratosphere in the sport’s biggest moments.
There may someday be another quarterback who plays in five Super Bowls in his 20s. There probably won’t be one who nails 89% of his biggest playoff drives.
And since he became a full-time starter in 2018, Mahomes leads the NFL in passing first downs (174) and touchdowns (28) and ranks second in passing yards (3,511) in the fourth quarter of games with the score between seven points either way.
The Most Underrated Player In Football
Can an obvious first-ballot Hall of Famer who’s in countless commercials and on the precipice of his fourth championship ring be better than he gets credit for?
For sure, and it has happened with Mahomes, who’s not even the universally agreed best QB in the NFL. (Here’s one pretty popular list that puts both Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen ahead of him. Right or not, in the regular season, there’s no one like Mahomes.)
The case for Mahomes as somehow an underrated force has two pillars. One is his contract. The other is that the 2024 Chiefs aside from Mahomes are simply not that good, and No. 15 is 60 minutes from turning the rest of his team into arguably one of the worst Super Bowl winners in three decades.
The contract Mahomes signed with the Chiefs in 2020 has morphed into the most team-friendly deal in North American professional sports. Mahomes’ average annual salary is now tied for 12th among quarterbacks (per spotrac.com) and it could keep dropping like a rock on in those rankings for another several years.
The deal runs through 2031, and Mahomes has been easy about restructuring his deal to create salary cap space but not yet pushing the Chiefs to freshen up (read: add total money) to his contract.
Mahomes surrendering an entire decade to the franchise in one contract has proven to be an incredible act, taking himself out of the market during a period of salary-cap escalation.
A One-Year Sole Proprietorship
Mahomes has been the centerpiece of the dynasty in Kansas City, but until 2024, none of his seasons have evoked the feeling that he was personally dragging the team to glory.
And if it feels like this year has been more of a Mahomes solo job than most Chiefs seasons, that’s because it has been. The Chiefs were the only team outside the top third of Opta Analyst’s non-QB team talent ratings to even make the playoffs, and now, here they are.
According to Opta Analyst’s historical TRACR rankings, the Chiefs would be the third-worst Super Bowl winner ever, only ahead of both of Eli Manning’s victorious Giants teams. TRACR takes data on both sides of the ball to calculate how many points per 10 drives better or worse teams are than the average team during those specific seasons.
Kansas City only ranked eighth in the NFL by that model in 2024.
Typically, the Chiefs aren’t just champs but indisputably elite over the course of the season. That surprises nobody.
Mahomes plays for an all-time great head coach in Andy Reid. He has thrown to an all-time great tight end in Travis Kelce. Two of his offensive linemen, Joe Thuney and Creed Humphrey, were first-team All-Pros this year. When Mahomes sits on the bench, he watches a defense led by one of the best coordinators ever in Steve Spagnuolo, who trots multiple All-Pros out on his side of the ball, too.
Mahomes’ contractual goodwill has let the Chiefs spend more on other players. But while general manager Brett Veach is himself a future Hall of Famer, the 2024 team he put around Mahomes was not only not elite but was in many regards only a bit better than average.
Spagnuolo’s defense has a bit of Mahomesian clutchness to it, stepping up on key downs after not playing great much of the time. Yet the Chiefs are more good than great this year. A plus-59 regular season point differential was the franchise’s worst since 2012 and would stack them among the least dominant teams to ever win a Super Bowl.
Tyreek Hill’s exit and Kelce’s decline have left Mahomes without an elite skill position player for the first time. And still, Mahomes has made it not matter.
Data modeling by Stats Perform’s Greg Gifford and Kyle Cunningham-Rhoads. Enjoy this? You can also follow our social accounts over on X, Threads, Bluesky and Facebook.
