Patrick Mahomes mounts assault on Tom Brady’s GOAT legacy

Tom Brady’s role as Fox Sports commentator is rather well paid, to put it mildly. The most successful player in NFL history, winner of seven Super Bowls – six with the New England Patriots, one with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers – joined the corporation on a £300 million contract over 10 years, following a 23-year career as a quarterback which earned Brady a mere £267 million.

This season has been Brady’s first as a commentator and while he has not been a disaster, given the size of his contract his work has also come under extraordinary scrutiny, for two reasons. The first is that Brady replaced the highly-regarded Greg Olsen as Fox’s lead co-commentator, despite Olsen excelling as an analyst during the Super Bowl two years ago. Naturally, Fox wanted their substantial investment to be part of their top commentary team. Olsen, a former Pro Bowl tight end, remains the better analyst and perhaps always will be, but it will be Brady who commentates for Fox on the Super Bowl in New Orleans this Sunday.

The second reason is the complicated relationship between Brady the commentator and Brady the minority owner, given his five per cent share in the Las Vegas Raiders. As a result of his stake in a rival NFL franchise, Brady has been unable to criticise officials or to enter a rival team’s facility for the usual pre-game television production meetings. The result of which is that you get a slightly filtered version of Brady as a commentator, which is hardly ideal.

Winning seven Super Bowls seemed to be an accomplishment that no player would get close to, particularly back in 2021 when Brady, at the age of 43, defeated the Kansas City Chiefs and their talented young quarterback in Patrick Mahomes. Tampa Bay’s defence had a major role to play in that, with Mahomes running for his life from pass rushers behind a leaky offensive line. He threw two interceptions and was sacked three times, a figure which could absolutely have been higher.

As he watched Brady lift his seventh Super Bowl, Mahomes was left on one and the gap between the two quarterbacks appeared insurmountable, particularly when Mahomes and the Chiefs were then defeated in the AFC Championship game (effectively the semi-final) the following season.

And then Mahomes and the Chiefs won the next two Super Bowls, defeating the Philadelphia Eagles in Arizona and then the San Francisco 49ers last year in Las Vegas. A seven-one advantage for Brady over Mahomes could be cut to seven-four by Monday morning, if Mahomes and the Chiefs become the first team in NFL history to win three Super Bowls in a row this Sunday. Even Brady and the Patriots never managed that, blowing their chance in the 2005 season with a loss in the Divisional round (quarter-finals) to the Denver Broncos.

Of course the Chiefs’ success is not purely down to Mahomes. They have a coach chasing the all-time wins record in Andy Reid, a league-leading defensive co-ordinator in Steve Spagnuolo, elite defenders in defensive tackle Chris Jones and cornerback Trent McDuffie.

The NFL is a league where the worst teams are supposed to have the biggest advantage each off-season by securing the best talents in the draft, and yet the Chiefs have hit on an absurd number of prospects during this dominant era thanks to the smart work of their general manager Brett Veach. They are as impressive an operation as you will find in any sport. Oh and their tight end Travis Kelce, ageing but still thriving on the biggest stage, remains an outstanding weapon for Mahomes to throw to in clutch moments. You may be aware of Kelce’s girlfriend, Taylor Swift.

That said, of course the Chiefs’ success is also absolutely down to Mahomes. The Chiefs went from very good with Alex Smith at quarterback to elite when they traded up to draft Patrick Lavon Mahomes II in 2017, the son of a former baseball pitcher. The younger Mahomes has a combination of awareness, precision, arm strength, innovation and scrambling ability which defences simply run out of answers for, time and again. And, he does not turn 30 until September, playing in a league where elite quarterbacks now carry on until their 40s.

Which makes Sunday in New Orleans such a fascinating situation for Brady, watching from the booth in New Orleans as Mahomes potentially chips away again at his legacy down on the field, possibly creeping closer to Brady’s tally of seven titles by adding a fourth of his own. The Eagles are a better side than the one who lost two years ago, no question, with a more imposing defence and the astonishing addition of running back Saquon Barkley, coming off a monster 2,000-yard season. Astonishing in the sense of; why on earth did the New York Giants let him leave in free agency?

The issue for Philadelphia is that Mahomes, Kelce, Reid and the rest of the Chiefs when pushed to the brink this season have always found a way to win the close games. They are a juggernaut in red, the closest thing to the dominant Patriots under Brady and Bill Belichick at the start of the century. For Brady, watching it unfold from the sidelines while he broadcasts his thoughts to an audience of over 120 millions people in the United States alone must be a strange experience.

Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.