While former New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady remains The GOAT, Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes is the best in the business today. Mahomes already has two Super Bowl MVPs and two NFL MVPs on his resume. If he retired today, he would join Brady in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, almost certainly on the first ballot. Thankfully, he is not done...
When appearing on I Am Athlete, Mahomes' Chiefs teammate and all-world tight end Travis Kelce had some very interesting things to say about the Kansas City quarterback. As expected, he thinks the world of his quarterback and expects that he is playing with one of the all-timers, in terms of his position group. Curiously, Kelce said that Mahomes will one day surpass Brady as The GOAT at QB.
He has a lot of respect for Brady, but he feels more is on Mahomes' plate than ever was on Brady's.
"Obviously, I got all the respect for Tom Brady. I wasn't able to get him in the playoffs, so I've Tom Brady-ed multiple times in my career, I got all the love for him. He's the GOAT and the best to ever do it but I think right now the rate that Pat is at, how he's doing it, I think it's a little more all on Pat than it was on Brady."
Kelce feels Mahomes will eclipse Brady in all categories but Super Bowls when the calls it a career.
"I just think one-five has an ability to find a way to get things done even when it breaks down or he's got to make this crazy throw across the field, and that's just something you haven't seen in the NFL, and he's been doing it since his first snap, and I think he's going to play a long, long time. So I think he'll catch him in all the accolades, but I think the biggest thing is always going to be those Super Bowls. That's a lot of Super Bowls."
Here is the clip from Kelce's appearance on the I Am Athlete podcast discussing Brady vs. Mahomes.
Unfortunately, Kelce's claim to being The GOAT at tight end will be far more compelling than that of Mahomes' over Brady as The GOAT quarterback when the dust has finally settled in this great debate.
There is so much to unpack here, so let's try and do this, aight...
Travis Kelce thinks Patrick Mahomes will surpass Tom Brady as The GOAT
Could Mahomes end up on the NFL Quarterback Mt. Rushmore when all is said and done? Oh, I am banking on it! However, there are several reasons why Mahomes surpassing Brady is probably not going to happen. The most obvious reason is Brady beat Mahomes head-to-head in Super Bowl 55 during his first season in Tampa. That gave him No. 7, keeping Mahomes and the Chiefs stuck on one.
While I will agree that Mahomes is not going to get to seven because that is just unfathomable, even if he does play well into his 40s, he is not this player if he did not play for Andy Reid and the Chiefs. Oh, he would be good, but Reid is his Bill Belichick. Although I expect them to work together for several more years, Reid will likely retire from coaching long before Mahomes hangs up the spikes.
To me, as long as Mahomes wins two more Super Bowls with Reid, and maybe one more without him, I think we can in time have a serious GOAT debate. Mahomes may have all the numbers and accolades on his side, but you have to remember the league did not pivot to being a purely passing one until Brady was approaching his early 30s. Mahomes has benefited from playing in this era of the league.
Ultimately, the real discussion here is if Kelce will become the tight end GOAT over the likes of Kellen Winslow, Tony Gonzalez and Rob Gronkowski. Kelce encapsulates the best of all three, whether that be receiving talent (Winslow), stats (Gonzalez) or winning (Gronkowski). If he plays at this level for another three years and gets one more Lombardi Trophy, you can say that Kelce is The GOAT of TEs.
Regardless, Mahomes-to-Kelce will go down as one of the greatest passing connections of all time.
