Patrick Mahomes, Trevor Lawrence prepare for first meaningful matchup

Patrick Mahomes has carved out some pretty compelling rivalries in the AFC. Are Trevor Lawrence and the Jags next on that list? 

The Jacksonville Jaguars and Kansas City Chiefs could not have been further apart on the spectrum of competitiveness over the course of Patrick Mahomes’ career. Immediately following the previous four seasons in which the Chiefs hosted the AFC Championship game in each of those four years, the Jaguars have drafted at No. 7 and No. 9 before selecting the top overall pick in each of the last two drafts. In fact, during the 2022 NFL Draft, it appeared that the Jags even sucked at sucking when they took a “project” player in Georgia’s Travon Walker over the sure-fire consensus number 1 overall pick Aidan Hutchinson.

Needless to say, no one expected us to be here at this present time, preparing for a Divisional Round matchup between the class of the AFC—the Kansas City Chiefs—and the previous laughingstock of the entire league in the Jacksonville Jaguars. A

fter the train wreck that was the 2021 season for Jacksonville, the springboard that led to that perceived gaffe of a number 1 overall pick, many had begun the process of writing off the previous year’s number 1 overall pick Trevor Lawrence as a franchise quarterback as well.

Lawrence’s rookie season under noted bar perv Urban Meyer was far from spectacular. The Jaguars finished 3-14, the worst in the NFL, and Lawrence looked like a dud out of the gates. In his rookie campaign, Lawrence finished the season with 3,641 passing yards, a 59.6% completion percentage, 12 touchdowns, and 17 interceptions. He led the league in picks, the Jags had the league’s worst record, and Meyer was fired 13 games in. The Jags were a dumpster fire, again.

Even 10 games into this season, no one expected the Jags to be here. Coming into a Week 11 matchup with the Chiefs at Arrowhead Stadium the Jaguars were 3-6 with the only hope of salvaging their season resting on the shoulders of a collapse by the Tennessee Titans. The Jaguars left that game with even less hope at 3-7 after being handled with relative ease by the Chiefs. The Titans were 7-3 and it looked like the Jags were barreling toward another top-10 draft pick.

Except they aren’t, and it started with Lawrence. Over the final 7 games of the regular season, the Jaguars went 6-1 with Lawrence accounting for 14 touchdowns compared to just 2 turnovers. The Titans, meanwhile, collapsed, as did the Chargers in their game against the Jaguars in the Wild Card round. And here we are, with a matchup no one in Chiefs Kingdom or Duval County expected to see after Week 11. After resurrecting their season and their playoff lives over the course of the past 8 weeks, Jacksonville appears to be a very game opponent to the AFC’s top-seeded Chiefs.

But what’s new for Kansas City? While no one expected Jacksonville to be here, and many had their doubts before the season that Kansas City may not even be in this position, a historic season from a quarterback who is now undeniably the gold standard in today’s NFL reminded everyone why the Chiefs are, well, the Chiefs.

Where Mahomes is now is where every young quarterback, including Lawrence, strives to be. These two will face off in the first meaningful game of their careers this Saturday at two different ends of the legacy spectrum—Lawrence looking for the victory that could begin his story, and Mahomes looking to put the cherry on top of a season that could likely go down as one of the greatest by an individual player of all time. At the age of 27, Mahomes’ career accomplishments look more like those of a 15-year vet than a player who is in just his fifth season as a starter in the league.

The standard Lawrence is striving for is the standard that Mahomes has set and reset over and over again in his time in the league. Sure, guys like Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Drew Brees, and Aaron Rodgers are listed in the history books under nearly all “All Time” stats you could rattle off for quarterbacks, but Mahomes is in the process of rewriting the books completely. The torrid pace with which he has come onto the scene in the NFL is unprecedented, and a deep playoff run ending in another Super Bowl championship this season will put him in the Pantheon of NFL quarterbacks. Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Steve Young, and Joe Montana. Those are the only four players currently to win multiple Super Bowls and MVP awards. The MVP at this point is a foregone conclusion for Mahomes, but if he continues to put the Chief on his shoulders as he has all season, more hardware is on the way.

For Lawrence, his ascension from struggling rookie to competent franchise quarterback has been sudden but pronounced. Credit Doug Pederson’s system and coaching acumen for some of Lawrence’s rise, but he has been considered a “can’t miss” prospect since his days in high school in Cartersville, GA. We all know about the accolades he knocked down at Clemson, the fact that he has never lost a game played on a Saturday, and that he was the lynchpin behind Jacksonville’s unlikely conquest of the AFC South in 2022, but he has yet to begin writing a true legacy in the NFL. A win over Patrick Mahomes seems like a rite of passage for a young QB to enter the upper echelon. Just ask Joe Burrow.

But it won’t be easy for Lawrence and the Jaguars. Where they want to go is where Mahomes and the Chiefs have been already, and are still there. The top of the mountain. The crest of the football world. Ric Flair used to say “To be the best, you’ve got to beat the best! WOOO!” Jacksonville will have to beat the best—the Chiefs—if they want their miraculous season to continue. But at 27, Mahomes is only getting better, and the Chiefs look primed to not only end the Jaguars’ run, but to stifle the rise of any other young quarterback seeking parallel status to number 15, whether that’s Josh Allen, Joe Burrow, or any of the quarterbacks on the NFC side.

While other young QBs are looking to write the first pages of their legacies, Patrick Mahomes is rewriting history. The old guard is gone; this is the first divisional round without Tom Brady or Aaron Rodgers since 2002. Yes, you read that correctly. Mahomes is the new standard towards which other quarterbacks strive. The only problem for them is that he continues to set the bar higher and higher each season, making life for guys like Lawrence that much more difficult.