Kansas City Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes will always be compared to former New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers QB Tom Brady when the playoffs roll around.
The start of his career is unrivaled in terms of playoff success. Mahomes’ 15-3 record through his first 18 playoff games is the best such record, surpassing the likes of Brady and Joe Montana (14-4).
Should Mahomes’ Chiefs win in the AFC divisional round of the playoffs against the Houston Texans on Saturday, he’ll pass Montana to hold the record for the second-most wins by a starting quarterback in postseason history. He still has quite a way to go to catch Brady, who has 35 postseason wins in his career.
A lot of the Brady records that Mahomes is currently chasing simply won’t be achievable this year, but Montana better watch out. With a 13th game with a 100-or-higher passer rating, Mahomes can surpass Montana to hold sole possession of the second-most such games in NFL history. Brady, however, still will have the record for the most with 19 such games.
With just 232 passing yards on Saturday, Mahomes (5,135) can surpass former New Orleans Saints QB Drew Brees (5,366) for the seventh-most postseason passing yards in NFL history. Should Kansas City advance to the Super Bowl, he’ll have a chance to rank as high as third or fourth by the end of this postseason. However, he will need a few more seasons of postseason success to catch Brady (13,400).
Mahomes currently has 456 complete passes during his postseason career. Should he complete 26 passes against the Texans, Mahomes can Brees (481), Brett Favre (481), and Montana (460) to have the fifth-most completions in NFL postseason history. Again, Mahomes has a long way to go to catch Brady, who currently leads the pack at 1,200 career postseason complete passes.
Regarding passing touchdowns, Mahomes currently ranks fifth all-time with 41 in the postseason. With just four more passing touchdowns in the NFL divisional round, Mahomes can surpass Favre (44) and tie Montana and Aaron Rodgers (45). To surpass Brady, though? He’ll need 47 more passing touchdowns in his postseason career.
We do not want to get too far ahead of ourselves, but there are at least a few things that Mahomes can do this postseason that Brady has never accomplished. Should the Chiefs win the Super Bowl, Mahomes will be the first starting quarterback to ever lead his team to three consecutive Super Bowl titles. He’ll also have recorded his fourth Super Bowl victory at 30 years old, which is seven years earlier than Brady got his fourth Lombardi Trophy. Of course, Mahomes will still have a way to go to catch Brady in terms of total Super Bowls (7).
