Patrick Mahomes led the Kansas City Chiefs to a Super Bowl win on Sunday night and now has two championships in his five years as the team’s starting quarterback. But can the 27-year-old have the same success as Tom Brady, who announced his retirement at the beginning of this month? PopCulture.com spoke to Chiefs legendary tight end and NFL analyst Tony Gonzalez who admitted that Mahomes will have a difficult time reaching the level of Brady. At the same time, Gonzalez believes that it can be done.
“That’s such a tall task, that really is. But I mean, look at what happened the other night, LeBron James breaks the all-time record, a record I thought would never be broken, breaking [Kareem Abdul-Jabba] record,” Gonzalez exclusively told PopCulture before Mahomes and the Chiefs took on the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl LVII. “So of course it can be done, but it’s going to be tough. Health is a big factor. And I think Patrick’s on his way. He’s taken a page out of Tom Brady’s book in not really taking these huge contracts. A lot of people don’t really talk about it, but Tom, he’s always been middle tier of making money, and he does that on purpose so he can go out there and fill up his roster with players around him because that’s what ultimately wins.”
Videos by PopCulture.com
Mahomes joined the Chiefs in 2017 but became the starter in 2018. In his first five seasons as a starting QB, the Texas Tech alum has won two Super Bowls, two Super Bowl MVPs and two NFL MVPs. Brady became the starting quarterback for the New England Patriots in 2001 after joining the team in 2000. In his first five seasons as a starter, Brady won three Super Bowls, two Super Bowl MVPs, and he didn’t win his first MVP award until the 2007 season.
Brady ended his NFL career with 10 Super Bowl appearances with seven Super Bowl wins. He also had five Super Bowl MVP wins, and three NFL MVP wins and was named to the Pro Bowl 15 times in 23 seasons. Matching that type of success will be difficult, but Mahomes’ contract will help him and the Chiefs win a lot of games over the next decade.
“Patrick, he got that mega-deal, that huge deal, but people don’t realize it was over a 12-year period,” Gonzalez said about Mahomes’ 10-year, $477 million contract he signed in 2020. “Most guys sign a five, six year so that it just eats up your cap space to go out there and sign other players. And Patrick gets it, it seems. I haven’t talked to him about it, but it seems like he gets it, and says, ‘All right, if I want to have a chance to go out there and have this incredible legacy of winning multiple championships’, he realizes he can’t do it by himself. So I love what he’s been doing contract-wise, and hopefully, he keeps doing that, keep extending it where it doesn’t have that huge hit against the cap and go out there and sign more players.”
