The defending Super Bowl champions, the Kansas City Chiefs, were shown to bleed their own blood in 2023. After a 5-1 start to the season, they finished 6-5, including a 13-12 win on a last-minute field goal over the Los Angeles Chargers in a game QB Patrick Mahomes did not play.
Indeed, by his standards, it was perhaps a somewhat pedestrian season. A 10-6 record, throwing for 4,183 yards with 27 touchdowns to 14 interceptions. Those are comfortably his worst touchdown and interception numbers by ratio as a starter over 96 career regular-season games.
But he has already reached the point in his career in which he’s carving out his legacy as a postseason phenomenon. Indeed, he is quickly encroaching upon Pittsburgh Steelers’ mortality. Beginning today, he could begin running through Steelers quarterback postseason records like a recessive gene.
Sitting at 12-3 all-time across six postseasons with three Super Bowl appearances and two victories, he would tie Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger and Brett Favre on the all-time postseason wins list should the Chiefs defeat the Buffalo Bills.
Roethlisberger, who Mahomes defeated in his final career game in the postseason, and Favre jointly occupy the spot for the sixth-most postseason victories by a quarterback in NFL history. Mahomes could join them today and then immediately set his sights on the next tier. In that group is four-time Super Bowl champion Steelers Hall of Fame QB Terry Bradshaw. He retired with the most all-time postseason victories at 14, since tied by John Elway and Peyton Manning and surpassed by Joe Montana (16) and Tom Brady (an utterly ridiculous 35).
Mahomes might not ever catch Brady—or perhaps he will one day—but it almost feels like a foregone conclusion that he will soon become the second-winningest postseason quarterback in the history of the game. He is already just four wins removed from Montana’s 16, a number he could reach by next season.
Since going 1-1 in 2018 and losing in the AFC Championship Game, Mahomes and the Chiefs have won at least twice in the postseason every other year and reached either the conference finals or the Super Bowl. They have represented the conference in the title game in three of the past four seasons.
Although the offense has not looked like the juggernaut it had been in years past, ranking only 15th in points scored, the defense had its best season since Mahomes was drafted. Kansas City has successfully reached the postseason every year of his career and in nine straight years altogether, the longest active streak in the NFL.
Of course, we have seen dynasties come to premature ends before. The Steelers reached the Super Bowl three times in Roethlisberger’s first seven seasons. In his last 11 years, they never made it back and only had one appearance in the conference finals.
Heading into the Super Bowl game of the 2010 season, he owned a 10-2 all-time playoff record. Since then, he finished his career 3-8, ending his tenure with four consecutive losses from 2016 to 2021. It’s happened to virtually everybody to one degree or another, except for Brady. So, can Mahomes defy history and dominate for decades?
