Whether he wins or loses in Sunday’s Super Bowl, Patrick Mahomes is already well on his way to NFL immortality. Merely by reaching his fourth Super Bowl, the gifted Kansas City Chiefs star is already on pace to surpass the achievements of the greatest quarterback in the sport’s history.
Still only 28, Mahomes is two years younger than Tom Brady was when he played in his fourth Super Bowl in 2007.
A victory against the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday would see Mahomes join Brady and Troy Aikman as the only quarterbacks to win three Super Bowls before their 30th birthdays. If Mahomes ends up hoisting the Vince Lombardi Trophy for a third time this weekend, the idea of him one day matching or beating Brady’s record tally of seven Super Bowl titles might not seem so fanciful.
Typically, the down-to-earth Mahomes, bats away comparisons with Brady, who put the pretender to his throne firmly in his place three years ago by leading Tampa Bay to victory over the Chiefs in Super Bowl 55. “Tom got like seven super bowls, every single record in the book,” Mahomes said. “All I can do is be the best PatrickPatrick Mahomes I can be every single day, and that’s what I’ll continue to do.”
Mahomes does hope to emulate Brady’s freakish longevity, however. The former New England and Tampa Bay star retired at 45 after 23 seasons. “I want to play as long as they’ll let me play,” Mahomes says. “Fifteen (more) years seems like a long time but Brady did it and some other guys have done it so I’m going to try to strive to see if I can do it as well.”
Anyone paying attention to Mahomes’ career trajectory would not be surprised if he manages that ambitious goal. “The one thing about Pat is his competitiveness — he’s never satisfied with where he is,” says Mahomes’s close friend and teammate Travis Kelce.