Patrick Mahomes is greatness personified for the Kansas City Chiefs

A ceremonious night in Super Bowl LVII’s host city of Phoenix, Arizona provided yet another opportunity for Patrick Mahomes to reaffirm his place in the pantheon of all-time greats.

On an evening designed to regale the finest athletes professional football has to offer, the league’s best player despite his absence, made yet another bold statement. In the final segment of the annual NFL Honors ceremony, Mahomes snared his second Most Valuable Player award commanding 48 of 50 possible votes. At the ripe old age of 27, he has now become the 10th player in the history of the National Football League to receive the award twice. He’s now in elite company with the likes of Peyton Manning, Aaron Rodgers, Jim Brown, Johnny Unitas, Brett Favre, Tom Brady, Joe Montana, Steve Young, and tonight’s presenter for the MVP award, Kurt Warner.

The five-time Pro Bowler was offsite on Thursday night preparing to make his third Super Bowl appearance in five seasons as Kansas City’s starting quarterback. This weekend, he looks to become the first player to collect both the MVP award and a Lombardi trophy in the same season. The feat was last accomplished by Warner in 1999. If he can pull it off with a win over the Philadelphia Eagles this Sunday, Mahomes would become the 11th player to secure the NFL’s two most-coveted first-quarter statuettes.

All of this is happening in a year where the Kansas City Chiefs did the unthinkable in trading away one of the most dynamic offensive players to ever play in the NFL (Tyreek Hill). The Chiefs backfilled the roster spots of Hill, Demarcus Robinson, and Byron Pringle with Marquez Valdez-Scantling, JuJu Smith-Schuster, and Justin Watson. In April, the Chiefs would select Western Michigan product Skyy Moore in the second round of the NFL Draft. Nearly six months later, Kansas City would acquire Giants castoff Kadarius Toney. That’s a total of five new players in Mahomes’ new-look receiving corps. This shouldn’t be happening.

How does a quarterback lose one of the three best wide receivers in the league and go on to set a new NFL single-season record for total yards? Pundits said the Kansas City Chiefs offense was cooked without Hill. Mahomes and company would respond by going 14-3, winning the AFC West for a seventh-straight season, and locking up the AFC’s No. 1 seed. The former Texas Tech standout led the league in passing yards, touchdowns, yards per game, and QBR. Sure, Hill left behind an offense that still boasted a future Hall of Famer in Travis Kelce. He had another elite season in 2022 posting 1,338 receiving yards and 12 touchdowns.

What if I told you that sans Travis Kelce’s contributions, Mahomes would still have been Top 10 in the league in both passing yardage and passing touchdowns? Subtract Travis Kelce‘s numbers and the man affectionately being called MVPat still amasses 3,912 passing yards and 29 touchdowns with his remaining weapons. JuJu Smith-Schuster had a rock-solid season where he flirted with 1,000 receiving yards, but tell me which of the other offensive options would definitely be starters on 10 other NFL teams? Take all the time you need.

Thursday’s MVP award may not prove to be the highlight of Patrick Mahomes’ 2022 campaign. He still has an opportunity, over the next 72 hours, to add to his trophy case. The Super Bowl could enter him into an even more remote space in the annals of the NFL. A second Super Bowl win thrusts him into an echelon almost exclusively populated by players enshrined in the Hall of Fame. It effectively destroys any talk about the NFL’s other young lions at quarterback sharing the stage with Mahomes. He’s had an unparalleled start to his career and winning the MVP and another Super Bowl would drive a stake through the heart of any more dissension aimed at him.

Six years ago, Chiefs Kingdom was resolute in its desire to draft a quarterback. Fans just wanted a quarterback. Today, we all realize they have the quarterback. The scary part is that the Kansas City Chiefs have re-opened their Super Bowl window and Mahomes is just entering his prime. Tom Brady is the NFL’s version of Jay Z who just dropped his magnum opus in The Black Album and retired his pen. Fortunately for fans of the sport, the game’s still in great hands and Mahomes is currently doing his best Kendrick Lamar/J. Cole impression. If he continues on this trajectory, he may soon change the entire tone of that “Best Rapper Alive” conversation. On Sunday night, he just might add another chapter to what’s shaping up to be a bestseller for the ages.