Over the past hundred years or so, the “media” has developed an uncanny ability to turn a meaningless event into an intoxicating headline. Its evolution from informing the public to engaging an audience was driven largely out of necessity, but that’s an analysis for another setting. Sports coverage can be overly dramatized as well, though the consequences of such theatrics pale in significance compared to, say, political coverage.
Few sporting events invoke the imagination of writers and editors more than the Super Bowl. It is the pinnacle of American sport, television, marketing, and, in many ways, culture. Thus, the difficulty in attracting the public’s attention is magnified ten-fold; it inspires more story-spinning than an Olympic figure skater could handle. This often leads to nonsensical narratives that take away from the game itself and serve as more of a distraction than anything.
The leading storyline entering this Sunday’s Super Bowl revolves around the quarterbacks, obviously. With two small-market teams like the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Kansas City Chiefs, the individual matchup between two iconic athletes is what sports media executives dream of.
On one side is Tom Brady: the greatest quarterback of all time, who continues to defy any previous understanding of the aging curve; on the other, Patrick Mahomes: the spry, transcendent talent who brings into question preconceptions on how to play the sport.
The topic has probably led every episode of sports-talk television and radio for two weeks. If Stephen A. Smith asked to have an hour-long monologue, ESPN would give him two. “Brady v. Mahomes” to football fans is akin to “The Great Gatsby” in high school literature curriculums.
It’s the old generation versus the new. The teacher versus the student. The goat versus the kid.
We, the fans, can’t get enough of “Tom Brady versus Patrick Mahomes” and we, the media, are happy to oblige. Unlike most Super Bowl storylines, this one is worth every second of air time.
For Brady, Sunday is less about adding to or even solidifying his illustrious legacy. He’s already lost Super Bowls to Eli Manning (twice) and Nick Foles — losing to Mahomes would be an upgrade.
That is not to say that Brady has nothing to gain from winning a seventh Super Bowl ring. While the “Brady versus Belichick” debate lies on the opposite side of the spectrum as “Brady versus Mahomes” — literally no one outside of a few zealous New England households cares — it would be disingenuous to say winning a championship in his first season away from the Patriots wouldn’t be a massive point in Brady’s favor.
Brady’s underlying motivations rarely escape his inner circle. And at this point, he has nothing left to prove. He’s undeniably the greatest winner in football history, there is no ghost left to chase. But his primary ambition is always clear: to win. He believed Tampa Bay gave him the best opportunity to do so.
The nature of football makes it difficult to articulate individual greatness. As such, Brady’s seldom mentioned as one of the greatest athletes of all-time. He could enter the discussion with Muhammad Ali, Serena Williams, Tiger Woods, Michael Phelps, Simone Biles, and others by winning another championship.
Well, at least for some. It’s pretty hard to argue with this.
The crux of Super Bowl LV remains about Brady suppressing Mahomes’ ability to hunt down his GOAT status. Mahomes has the potential to give Brady a run for his money. He has the tangibles — talent, supporting cast, and coaching staff — as well as the intangibles, but he’ll need a helluva lot of good fortune along the way.
Brady’s six Super Bowl rings are essentially insurmountable. No other franchise has won more. Given the circumstances that allowed the Patriots to compete for Super Bowls for two decades, it is highly improbable Mahomes ever approaches that number.
The difference is that Mahomes is the dynamo that transforms Kansas City into an absolute juggernaut. Don’t forget Alex Smith won just a single playoff game in four years with Andy Reid and Travis Kelce, and none in the two years after adding Tyreek Hill. Where Smith’s Chiefs blew 21-3 first-half leads to the Marcus Mariota-led Titans, Mahomes’ Chiefs erase 24-point deficits in a single quarter.
Early in his career, Brady was a mere cog in Belichick’s system. Through their first three seasons as starters, Mahomes averaged 90 more passing yards and one more passing touchdown per game than Brady.
Brady made just two Pro Bowls and never had a quarterback rating above 92.6 during his first four seasons as a starter; Mahomes’ career rating is 108.7 and has never been below 105.3. Brady won SB XXXVI MVP while throwing for 145 yards and one touchdown; Mahomes has already won one league MVP — and arguably should have more — and been named to two All-Pro teams.
Perhaps that undersells Brady’s importance to those Patriot teams. In fact, it almost certainly does — that system won three championships in Brady’s first four years. The evolution of passing offense and league-wide rule changes also explain some of the statistical chasm. Although, it is important to note that those conditions helped extend Brady’s career as much as they boosted Mahomes’ stats.
A Chiefs victory on Sunday would afford Mahomes the chance to keep pace with young Brady by capturing his second Super Bowl in three years. (Insert Dee Ford asterisk here.) Actually, that’s exactly the point here: winning six Super Bowls means being on the right side of several asterisks. Brady’s ring collection is not a realistic proposition. This is not a Jordan-LeBron comparison — this is closer to a Bill Russell and insert-basketball-player-post-merger-here situation.
This Super Bowl is, however, reminiscent of LeBron’s 2016 NBA Finals. That championship against the 73-win Warriors, combined with the historic 3-1 comeback, genuinely felt like two titles. It turned a potentially crippling 2-5 career Finals record into a malleable 3-4 one. For Mahomes, a six-ring to two deficit — with a head-to-head victory — is much more palatable than a seven-to-one hole with an L in hand.
Conversely, Brady has a chance to step on Mahomes’ proverbial throat right here, right now. If a 43-year-old Brady defeats a 25-year-old Mahomes, how can anyone argue in favor of Mahomes, regardless of how the next fifteen or so years of his career unfolds? (I mean, I likely will, but I’ll probably look like a fool.)
Brady v. Mahomes is the unique head-to-head matchup worthy of comparisons to Greek mythology. It is the equivalent of Jordan’s Wizards facing the Lakers in the NBA Finals, except if 22-year-old LeBron was throwing Shaq lobs instead of Kobe.
When the Chiefs played the Bucs in Week 12, I tweeted that when we look back on Brady and Mahomes’ career in however many years, that game will be the lasting memory (for better or worse).
It was the fourth meeting between the two and Mahomes’ seemingly final chance to even their head-to-head record. Mahomes seemed to relish that opportunity. He hung 462 yards and three touchdowns on the Bucs’ lauded defense, including over 200 yards and two touchdowns to Tyreek Hill in the first quarter alone.
But little did we know, there would be a fifth meeting. The rubber match of all rubber matches. The Thrilla in Tampa, if you will.
Nothing about Brady v. Mahomes V is hyperbole. Well, most of it probably is — but that wouldn’t fit my narrative, now would it?