The lasting legacy of Patrick Mahomes begins in the postseason

The lasting legacy of Kansas City Chiefs starting quarterback Patrick Mahomes begins now with the postseason—and every other postseason going forward.

You can hear it every time they cite the number of Tom Brady’s rings. It echoes whenever sports reporters mention the lack of any of those same rings in conjunction with Dan Marino.

While the statistics of NFL quarterbacks are lauded over any other position, as illustrated by the number of QBs who end up winning the Most Valuable Player award, it’s what each man accomplishes in the postseason that ends up to be the lasting legacy of each.

Very few quarterbacks are remembered for their regular season heroics. Very few regular season statistics are memorized and stated—unless they are one of a handful of single-season records, most of which Patrick Mahomes is chasing in his first year as a starting quarterback. And while this year has been one for Kansas City Chiefs fans to remember, the reality is that the long-term memory of the average NFL fan will only recall what Mahomes accomplishes in the postseason.

That means that Mahomes’ time is now. The Chiefs enjoyed a very successful regular season, and Mahomes’ campaign toward league MVP was the major storyline there. Mahomes placed himself alongside the greatest signal callers of all time in his first full season as a professional. His name was bandied about with luminaries like Brett Favre, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, and John Elway.

For Mahomes to be remembered alongside those same names, he will need what each of those has: a Super Bowl ring.

Mahomes now faces a blank slate once again, and while it might be easy to assume that the same sort of jaw-dropping throws will become a part of his postseason lore, the reality is that NFL history is littered with players who transform from the regular season to the playoffs. Chiefs fans can even look at their own head coach, Andy Reid, for the same evidence—a legendary head coach who is among the top six all-time in total wins, which is an incredible achievement, has struggled to piece together many wins at all in the postseason despite multiple opportunities.

As Mahomes awaits his postseason opponents, it will be interesting to see if he’s the same quarterback Chiefs fans have watched for 17 starts or whether he will turn into something else entirely. For the sake of a fan base that has been waiting for a playoff hero for decades, here’s hoping Mahomes looks just as good in the postseason for Kansas City—and that a successful winter run in 2019 is just the first of several such runs in the future.