As Patrick Mahomes chases Tom Brady in rings won, Chiefs QB also keeping many legacies in check along the way

Death, taxes and Tom Brady or Patrick Mahomes in the Super Bowl. 

It’s inevitable. At least one of Brady or Mahomes has been in a conference title game in 14 straight years. At least one has been in eight of the last 10 Super Bowls. They’ve won seven of the last 10, and 10 of the last 23 championships.

While Mahomes continues to chase Brady’s seven rings, an interesting subplot is all the legacies they’ve kept in check along the way. 

Brady’s playoff career started off with a 10-game win streak that included wins over four MVP quarterbacks: Kurt Warner, Steve McNair and Peyton Manning (twice). Unbelievably, he went 7-1 in his playoff career vs. MVP quarterbacks from that regular season (and 8-1 vs. all MVPs including LaDainian Tomlinson in 2006).

Brady playoff career vs. MVP QBs from that season

Brady’s first Super Bowl win came at the expense of the Rams, who looked like they might have the beginning of a dynasty with a potential second Super Bowl win after leading the NFL in both scoring and total offense for an unprecedented three straight seasons. Instead, that massive Super Bowl upset was the beginning of the end for the “Greatest Show on Turf.” 

In similar fashion, Brady’s ring in 2014 came at the expense of a second straight title for the “Legion of Boom,” who had led the NFL in scoring and total defense for three straight seasons. They never recovered from Malcolm Butler’s interception. He also helped keep Drew Brees and Aaron Rodgers on one ring.

Brady (and, of course, Belichick and the entire Patriots team) won playoff games against Philip Rivers, Matt Ryan and Jared Goff, who have zero rings. He won a handful of postseason games against Hall of Fame-caliber quarterbacks in Peyton Manning (two), Patrick Mahomes (two), Ben Roethlisberger (two), Aaron Rodgers (one), Drew Brees (one), Matthew Stafford (one), Matt Ryan (one) and Russell Wilson (one). Giants fans can once again celebrate that Eli Manning is not on this list.

Although it was mostly the work of Belichick’s defense, Brady helped keep Peyton Manning in check by beating the Colts at home in the postseason in 2003 and 2004. It wasn’t until Manning’s ninth season that he finally beat the Patriots in the playoffs and won his first Super Bowl. 

Perhaps Brady’s greatest ring-blocking achievement is going 2-0 against the Chiefs and Mahomes in the playoffs while winning the Super Bowl both seasons (2018 and 2020). That’s a four-ring swing. The old adage proves true there, you can’t stop him, you can only hope to contain him.

Mahomes has gotten his and has certainly taken the torch from Brady. Maybe it’s no coincidence that this three-peat run began when the Chiefs beat the Eagles in Super Bowl LVII, nearly two weeks after Brady retired for good. 

Much like Brady slowed down Peyton Manning, Mahomes has stood in the way of the next generation of quarterbacks (his generation) hoisting their first Lombardi Trophy. The Chiefs have won nine games so far during their three-peat run, all against quarterbacks in their twenties, all with zero rings still. That includes Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, Joe Burrow and Jalen Hurts, arguably Mahomes’ four closest contemporaries to this point. 

Mahomes’ last three postseasons

Mahomes has faced at least two quarterbacks from that group in each of the last four postseasons. If you include 2020, he’s gone five straight postseason runs facing multiple top-five (ish) quarterbacks. It’s been a gauntlet. 

Notable quarterbacks Mahomes faced in last five postseasons:

• 2020: Josh Allen, Tom Brady
• 2021: Josh Allen, Joe Burro
• 2022: Joe Burrow, Jalen Hurts
• 2023: Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson
• 2024: Josh Allen, Jalen Hurts

Hurts will try to become the first quarterback drafted after Mahomes (2018 or later) to win a Super Bowl. So far Mahomes is 12-1 vs. those signal-callers in the playoffs. Incredibly, Jackson (.745), Hurts (.697) and Josh Allen (.691) own the three best records since the merger among quarterbacks without a ring (minimum 50 starts). They are a combined 0-6 vs. the Chiefs and Mahomes in the playoffs.

If we learned anything from Brady, it’s that you can only keep these superstars down for so long. Some combo of Jackson, Hurts, Allen, Burrow (and maybe Jayden Daniels, too) will get their rings like Peyton Manning, Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, Eli Manning and Ben Roethlisberger got theirs. However, they probably won’t win as many as they deserve and some won’t win at all. 

It might not be the difference in a Hall of Fame career, but it’ll impact legacy discussions. Rings are one reason why Aaron Rodgers, Dan Marino and Drew Brees aren’t on the Mount Rushmore of quarterbacks.

I went into this exercise wondering which GOAT has done more ring-blocking and faced a tougher road in the playoffs and I’ve come away with an awe and appreciation for what each has done and the destruction left in their wake. 

On average, they faced a top-10 quarterback (in terms of EPA per play) in their playoff careers. They’ve faced a Pro Bowl quarterback from that year in roughly half their postseason games. 

Brady vs. Mahomes’ opponents in playoff career

Brady gets the ring-blocking edge for now because of the aforementioned head-to-head work against Mahomes, but both are doing (or did) their best Michael Jordan impersonations. Superstars from the Jordan era who never won titles include Karl Malone, John Stockton, Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing and Reggie Miller (among others). 

Hopefully this won’t happen to this generation of quarterbacks, but that’s the landscape in the last decade as Brady and Mahomes have a monopoly on Lombardi Trophies.