Is Patrick Mahomes the worst starting quarterback in the AFC West in 2018?

Kansas City Chiefs fans can’t wait to see Patrick Mahomes become their starting quarterback, but could he be the worst quarterback in the AFC West this year?

Kansas City Chiefs fans’ excitement level over first year starting quarterback Patrick Mahomes is off the charts. Never in the history of the franchise has the team had a young, highly-drafted, highly-regarded prospect with this much positive buzz around them. It’s something that fans of other teams may not be able to comprehend if their team has had many prospects like that over their years of fandom. For Chiefs fans, Mahomes is the quarterback they’ve been dreaming of for literally decades.

I am on the record as an unabashed Mahomes fan. I was praying that they would draft him and now that we’ve seen glimpses of him in preseason games and the season finale against Denver I am convinced he is going to be the best Chiefs quarterback since Len Dawson. I’m not alone. The expectation levels for Mahomes may be the only thing as high as the fan excitement level. That’s probably not fair to Mahomes. Granted, everything he has said and done to this point has been pretty much perfect and has just continued to stoke the flames of expectation higher and higher. It’s now to the point that it seems some fans may be expecting Mahomes to be one of the best quarterbacks in all the NFL as a first time starter.

That’s just not realistic.

Several weeks back I did a post entitled “What should we expect from Patrick Mahomes in 2018?” In that post I looked at some other examples of quarterbacks starting for the first time or in similar circumstances to Mahomes to see if we could find some kind of parameters for his expectations. If that interests you I certainly encourage you to go back and read it. The conclusion I came to in that post is that Mahomes floor this season is probably Donovan McNabb’s first full year as a starter and his ceiling is Aaron Rodgers first year as a starter.

Those numbers are as follows.

Donovan McNabb:

• 58% completions
• 3,365 passing yards
• 21 touchdowns
• 13 interceptions

Aaron Rodgers:

• 63.6% completions
• 4,038 passing yards
• 28 touchdowns
• 13 interceptions

Where will Mahomes land in that range? Could he be even better (or worse) than those numbers? Only time will tell, but there is no doubt that the Kansas City Chiefs are all in on trying to win the AFC West for a third consecutive time with their first year starting quarterback. So my question for today is, is it possible that the Chiefs will be working with the worst quarterback in the division in 2018?

I know many of your first response to that question will be to laugh at what an idiot I am for even asking such a thing, but before you blow me off as a fool or dismiss this piece as simple click bait just to get attention, hear me out. The argument may not be as absurd as some of you think and this is coming from a huge Mahomes fan who thinks he’s going to be the answer to our quarterback prayers.

Before we get to the comparisons, let’s just take a quick glance at each of the three other starting quarterbacks in the division.