What AFC Championship means for legacies of Joe Burrow, Patrick Mahomes

A Super Bowl berth is not the only pending implication for Sunday’s AFC Championship game. The two signal callers for each team stand to significantly add to each of their legacies with a win. 

This Sunday’s matchup between Joe Burrow and the Cincinnati Bengals and Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs needs no build-up. There is no need for the soft entrance of a crescendo; we’ve been at full volume all week on this one. The storylines are endless. It’s the one matchup that the entire football world will be tuned in to on Sunday night, and the rivalry that’s already percolating to heights we’ve not seen since Manning and Brady.

One of those endlessly discussed storylines circulating all the way from local blogs to national pundits is the legacy of these two instantly prolific quarterbacks. Burrow and Mahomes will meet for the second consecutive year in the AFC Championship game Sunday, the first rematch in the title game since the Ravens and Patriots tangoed in 2013 and 2014. While each QB has certainly gotten to this point in their careers in many different ways, their desired destination is one that no other AFC quarterback has reached in 4 calendar years: a Super Bowl appearance.

The legacies of Burrow and Mahomes

Let’s define some legacies, shall we? What can we deduce from the fourth meeting of these two quarterbacks that will define the remainder of their careers? For Burrow, this would be his fourth consecutive win over Mahomes and the Chiefs in as many tries, including the last two AFC Championship games. He would make his second consecutive Super Bowl appearance in just his third season in the league. He’d be in the elite-est of company if he were to pull this off, even more so if he and the Bengals are able to win the franchise’s first Lombardi.

For Mahomes? Needless to say, he would be staring down the prospect of debate shows starting to ask “Is he the best we’ve ever seen?” In all reality, they already are. He’s already racked up five AFC championship appearances in, let me check… his first five seasons as a starter in the NFL.

A win for Mahomes would mean an appearance in 3 of the last 4 Super Bowls. Both of the aforementioned items are Brady and Montana-esque. Something no one has done before from a winning perspective, coupled with statistical achievements that are equally unprecedented. Never before has a quarterback been able to string together the type of individual statistical success and match it with a level of winning that propels a franchise to peerless levels of achievement. When people say, “This is the golden era of Chiefs football,” do not take that for granted.

Keeping perspective for Burrow

This feels like a point where I should dive into statistical analysis for both players and project where they could be 10 years from now with a win on Sunday, but I won’t. If Joe Burrow goes to 4-0 against Patrick Mahomes on Sunday, Mahomes will not be living in a van in 10 years. If Mahomes beats Burrow, Cincinnati will without a doubt be back in the thick of things next year. The narrative is understandable, and the matchup is historically significant, but let’s zoom out and face the facts here.

Burrow is an incredible football player, so much so that LSU and Ohio State might have a custody battle over him after his comments about still being a Buckeye earlier this week. Cincinnati is an absolute problem for the Chiefs, the roster that Burrow leads is stacked and poses matchup nightmares for K.C. But if Cincinnati wins this weekend, saying that Joe Burrow has surpassed Patrick Mahomes in today’s quarterback hierarchy is almost as much of a reach as Cincinnati’s prospects of keeping all of their young talent under contract.

Cincy has done a great job of catching lightning in a bottle with Burrow, Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins, and others on the offensive side of the ball. But what happens when those guys all have to get paid? Burrow is the latest in a trend that has seen, on average, one quarterback on a rookie contract in each of the last 10 Super Bowls. Now, there hasn’t been one in each game, but there has been 10 total over the course of that time. Only one has gone back to the big game after getting paid: Patrick Mahomes. Burrow can’t match Mahomes on that with a win, but he can match him in Super Bowl appearances if they win this weekend in the Chiefs’ home stadium.

The Bengals need to remember where they’re heading, though. To boast about seeing the team at “Burrowhead” this weekend might not be the most calculated way to go about this. Mahomes’ ankle has been the story all week long, but all visual evidence has led stunningly to a feeling around the Kingdom that everything might just be ok. Limited footage has shown us he’s fairly mobile, certainly not laboring around, and the potential addition of Mecole Hardman, Jody Fortson, and Clyde Edwards-Helaire back to the offense gives hope for some added firepower this Sunday.

Keeping perspective for Mahomes

In all reality, this game won’t add to Mahomes’ legacy. He’s already set there. His five AFC Championship games give him the same number that Peyton Manning made in his entire career and the same amount that Aaron Rodgers has appeared in at age 39. For those counting at home, Mahomes is 27. He also happens to be the same age that Manning won his first career playoff game.

In fact, if Mahomes plays as long as Manning he will end up with over 82,000 passing yards and 653 passing TD. That’s good for first all-time in touchdown passes if you were wondering, but somehow the yardage mark will still put him behind Tom Brady. For kicks if he played as long as Brady he’d have 111,504 passing yards (if he kept up this pace). Impossible? Yeah, probably. Ridiculous? Definitely, but that’s Patrick Mahomes.

This game doesn’t define a legacy that’s already been created. If Mahomes walked away from the game tomorrow, he’d be in Canton five years from now. That’s not the point of all of this. Instead, this game is one that could cement Mahomes’ legend. The revenge factor with the Bengals winning the last three. The search to get back to the Super Bowl. The ankle injury and the Phoenix-like rise from the ashes just eight days after suffering it. The nearly-guaranteed MVP winner chasing the “perfect season”: MVP, Lombardi, and Super Bowl MVP. It’s a game that will make people ask: “Is he the best we’ve ever seen?”

The next three weeks could go a long way in making it hard to answer that question with “No”.