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Ivis AburtoESPN Digital
With four years in the NFL and a bright future, there’s a good chance Patrick Mahomes will overcome his thunderous loss in Super Bowl LV, but the Kansas City Chiefs quarterback may not have time to shake off any other label than the reverse. Against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers left him.
If, as he has said multiple times, Tom Brady decides to play to age 45 and end his career with the Buccaneers and the Chiefs quarterback maintains his rising rhythm in the NFL’s historic elite, Mahomes won’t have time to remove itself. the tag of not being able to beat Brady in the big game.
Mahomes’ record against Brady is 2-3 including Playoffs and both wins were in the regular season, the first in 2019, Brady’s senior year with the New England Patriots and the second in the final regular season.
Mahomes has shown that he can beat Brady between September and December, but failed to take out a quarterback in the postseason who, after beating him, won the last two Vince Lombardi trophies of his collection.
After losing to Brady and the Patriots in the 2018 AFC Championship Game, the only arenas that Mahomes could really get a rematch were a conference final or the Super Bowl. Any win in a previous round of the Playoffs or in the regular season would not offset the impact of the loss in the AFC Final.
Brady then went to the NFC and immediately Mahomes was given the real chance for revenge and in the maximum scenario that American football can provide as a framework to prove to the world that he can beat the considered best quarterback in history in the most important moment.
This is a movie that Brady starred in in the early years of his career, after becoming the stone in the shoe of another quarterback with spectacular style and a powerful arm, Peyton Manning.
Brady, who became a starting quarterback for the Patriots in 2001, defeated Manning in his first six encounters, including two AFC Championship Games. It wasn’t until the 2005 season, when the former Indianapolis quarterback Colts managed to beat Brady, but he did so in the regular season.
The only way Manning could take away the stigma of not beating Brady was in the Playoffs, with a conference final as the podium, and he did big in the 2006 AFC Championship Game.
Manning orchestrated one of the greatest comebacks in NFL history by having the Colts erase an 18-point deficit in the second quarter, a feat that catapulted him to his first Super Bowl.
Mahomes won the NFL title in his third year in the NFL, and the success he enjoyed early in his career casts him as the future top figure in the league who can challenge Brady’s legacy, but perhaps the time to try it. the Chiefs quarterback.
Due to the NFL’s dueling rotation, the Buccaneers and Chiefs will meet again in the regular season through 2024. If Brady decides to retire to the age of 45, he would after the 2023 campaign.
If Brady decides to end his career with Tampa Bay, the only place Mahomes would see him back in the Super Bowl, and the Chiefs and Bucs’ chances of meeting again in the NFL title game are not nil, but they are slim . .
To be the best, you must beat the best, not in the regular season, but in life-and-death duels that only appear in the Playoffs and after losing Brady in a conference final and in a Super Bowl, only in these scenarios will Mahomes are able to erase the stigma that you can’t beat Brady in the big game.