Chasing the Greatest: When Patrick Mahomes will catch Tom Brady

The Kansas City Chiefs are heading to their fourth Super Bowl appearance in six seasons. Patrick Mahomes, the young phenom at the helm, has already drawn comparisons to Tom Brady. While it's shaping up to be the NFL's version of the Michael Jordan versus LeBron James debate, it's still too early to place them on the same pedestal.

Mahomes landed in quarterback heaven when the Chiefs selected with the No. 10 overall pick in the 2017 NFL Draft. Andy Reid's explosive and pass-heavy scheme was tailor-made for the gunslinger. The offensive roster was equipped with young talent and speed. All-purpose running back Kareem Hunt was flanked by two future Hall of Famers: wide receiver Tyreek Hill and tight end Travis Kelce.

The Chiefs provided their franchise quarterback with talent and organizational stability. He rewarded them with Lombardi Trophies. In his six seasons as the Kansas City Chiefs starter, Mahomes has compiled 28,140 passing yards with 219 passing touchdowns and 62 interceptions.

Mahomes has found unprecedented success in the early stages of his career, proving that he has the work ethic and the competitive drive to achieve generational greatness. Catching Brady, however, takes more than just a generation. Brady defeated his opponents in the early 2000s, then defeated their children twenty years later. The greatest quarterback in NFL history maintained a stranglehold over the NFL for decades. He did it in the salary cap and free agency era, when great teams are meant to regress to the mean.

To break many of Brady's records, Mahomes will have to maintain his greatness for much longer than six years. He'll have to adapt to the ebbs and flows that come with a long career. There will be roster turnover, coaching changes, personnel adjustments, new schematic trends, injuries and — the most inevitable of them all — Father Time.

Mahomes relies on his physical athleticism and whip-like release to make acrobatic plays. Those electrifying traits will deteriorate over time. Mahomes plays with more situational awareness and better pocket movement than he used to, but the work doesn't end. He'll need to fine-tune his mechanics and redefine himself many more times.

Football is a game of attrition. If Father Time doesn't catch a player, fatigue often does. By age 30, even the most jubilant and energetic players begin to wear down from the daily monotony of film study, meetings, practices and training room sessions. Family becomes more important while football becomes more tasking.

To have a chance of catching Brady, he'll have to endure all of that — and much more.

"If you're going to compete against me, you better be willing to give up your life," Brady said. "Because I'm giving up mine."

Here's a look at how long it could take Mahomes to claim some of Brady's records.

Tom Brady records and how long Patrick Mahomes will need to catch them

649 career passing touchdowns

While he hasn't matched his career-high 50 passing touchdowns in the 2018 season, Mahomes has found the end zone fairly consistently throughout his career. He currently has 219 career passing touchdowns — 430 less than Brady. During his six seasons as a starter, Mahomes has averaged 36.5 passing touchdowns per season. At his current pace, Mahomes would be 40 years old when he passed Brady, sometime during the 2035 season.

251 career wins

Mahomes has gotten off to a stellar start with the Chiefs, compiling a 74-22 record through 96 career games. His win percentage (77.0 percent) is the best of any quarterback in NFL history, among those with a minimum of 25 starts. He's still a staggering 177 wins behind Brady. Peyton Manning and Brett Favre, who are tied for second place with 186 wins each, are 65 games short of Brady. Even if Mahomes manages to maintain his .770 win percentage, it would take him 232 games to surpass Brady's record with 252 career wins. If Mahomes didn't miss a single game for the rest of his career, he wouldn't surpass Brady's win total until the 2037 NFL season, at age 42.

7 Super Bowl wins

Brady had a chokehold on the entire league during his career, and nothing makes that more evident than his 10 Super Bowl appearances during his 21 full seasons as a starting quarterback. Mahomes is already following a similar trajectory. He has led the Chiefs to a Super Bowl appearance in four of his six seasons as a starter. Mahomes won two of the three Super Bowls he has played in. His lone loss was a 31-9 drubbing by Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Super Bowl LV. The outcome of Mahomes' fourth Super Bowl appearance will be determined when the Chiefs face the San Francisco 49ers for Super Bowl LVIII in Las Vegas.

If Mahomes wins, he would become the fifth quarterback to win three or more Super Bowls in NFL history. The third championship would place Mahomes in a tie with three-time champion Troy Aikman. He would still be behind Joe Montana and Terry Bradshaw, who both won four times, and — of course — behind Brady, who won seven. In that scenario, Mahomes would have three Super Bowl wins through his first six seasons as a starter. If he won a Super Bowl every other season — which is an unsustainable rate over a 14-year period — he could tie Brady's seven championships following the 2031 NFL season, at age 36.

If the Chiefs lose Super Bowl LVIII, Mahomes would fall to a 2-2 Super Bowl record. If Mahomes won a Super Bowl every other season in that scenario, he wouldn't catch Brady until the 2039 NFL season, at age 44, with a 7-7 Super Bowl record. Clearly, the sample size is too small to make a judgement.

Even with a win in the upcoming Super Bowl, Mahomes would need to replicate Montana's entire career of four Super Bowl wins just to tie Brady's record of seven titles. That's easier said than done, regardless of Kansas City's current stretch of dominance. Mahomes needs six more Super Bowl appearances to tie Brady's record of 10 appearances. Even if he makes a Super Bowl appearance every other year, he wouldn't reach Brady's mark until age 40, following the 2035 season.

Still, the Chiefs quarterback is off to a good start. When Mahomes takes the field for Super LVIII, he will become the first quarterback in NFL history to make four Super Bowl appearances before the age of 30.

35 postseason wins

Mahomes has compiled a 14-3 postseason record in 17 playoff games — a .824 win percentage. His fourteen playoff wins are tied for third-most in NFL history with Peyton Manning, John Elway and Terry Bradshaw. After just six seasons, he is only two wins behind Joe Montana's 16 playoff wins. Remarkably, Mahomes' postseason record is identical to Brady's record through 17 playoff games.

Mahomes has a chance to claim his 15th win in the Super Bowl, while Brady didn't pick up his 15th postseason win for another four years. Still, Mahomes isn't even halfway to Brady's record of 35 postseason wins. The 28-year-old quarterback, who has won 2.33 playoff games per season, would need 10 more seasons without any decline to achieve that feat. Mahomes would take the record following the 2033 season at age 38.

11 consecutive division titles

Brady led the New England Patriots to 11 straight division titles from 2009 to 2019, his last year in New England. Although the Chiefs have already won eight consecutive division titles, Mahomes has only been there for the last six. If Mahomes leads the Chiefs to a division title for another six seasons, he should take the record in the 2029 season, at age 34.

The legendary quarterbacks clashed six times during their careers, splitting their head-to-head matchups with three wins each. Mahomes got the better of Brady in the regular season, 3-1. Brady, as he often did, got the last laugh in the postseason. Brady's two playoff wins against Mahomes both came in championship games — an overtime classic in the 2018 AFC Championship Game and a legacy-defining blowout in Super Bowl LV. Of Mahomes' three playoff losses, two were against Brady.

Brady routinely prevented teams from becoming back-to-back champions — the 2014 Seattle Seahawks and 2020 Chiefs came close, but both teams lost the Super Bowl to a Brady-led team in the Super Bowl. Brady's 2004 Patriots still remain the last team to win two consecutive Super Bowls. Now, without Brady standing in his way, Mahomes has a chance to become the first back-to-back Super Bowl-winning quarterback since Brady.

All statistics assume the NFL remains with a 17-game regular season, which began during the 2021 NFL season.