Chris Simms of NBC Sports stirred up the quarterback discourse recently by releasing his latest rankings for the 2025 NFL season and placing Patrick Mahomes at No. 4. For the first time in years, the Chiefs superstar fell out of Simms’ top three, with Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen, and Joe Burrow ranked ahead of him.
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While Simms insisted his opinion came with “nothing but respect and admiration” for Mahomes, the reasoning behind the demotion did not sit well with Chiefs Nation.
One of the most vocal responses came from Cole DeRuse, who runs the YouTube channel How Bout Those CHIEFS. He took particular issue with the veteran analyst’s argument that Mahomes’ success was buoyed by a top-tier defense and wasn’t primarily a result of his own elite play.
Simms, in his ranking, had claimed that because of Kansas City’s stout defense, Mahomes “doesn’t always have to be great” to win… unlike Burrow or Allen. According to the NBC analyst, the latter two QBs have to play near-flawless football for their teams to have a shot.
That didn’t fly with DeRuse, who reminded viewers of where the franchise was before Mahomes took over. “People seem to forget that Andy Reid was 1–4 in the playoffs with the Chiefs until Mahomes became the starter,” he said. “From there, they won 17 out of 21 playoff games.”
That’s a shift from a 20% playoff win rate to 81% since Mahomes took the reins, numbers that are simply hard to ignore. The YouTuber further pointed out that while Simms tried to dismiss wins as a “QB stat,” the correlation between Mahomes’ arrival and the franchise’s rise was far too significant to overlook.
DeRuse then went on to dismantle another piece of Simms’ logic, specifically, that the Chiefs star had the luxury of patience in the pocket and took too many downfield risks because the defense gave him margin for error. “He had no wide receiver one, no wide receiver two, no RB1,” DeRuse shot back in response to the claims.
Additionally, it’s also important to note that the Chiefs offensive line, particularly the left tackle position, was in such turmoil that the team cycled through four different options, until veteran Joe Thuney, who played out of position, gave them the most stability. Naturally, this led to the Kansas City quarterback getting sacked more times [36] than in any other season in his career.
Despite that, he dragged a mediocre offense, lacking explosive plays both on the ground and through the air, to the NFL’s biggest stage—the Super Bowl—for the third straight year.
And then finally came the YouTuber’s biggest argument to discredit Chris Simms’ ranking: the Chiefs superstar’s unmatchable playoff dominance over his AFC peers.
“You want to talk about playoff performance?” DeRuse asked. “Mahomes has been the most clutch quarterback in the game for years. Burrow hasn’t sniffed the playoffs in two seasons. Lamar Jackson has struggled mightily in the postseason. Josh Allen had the ball in the final minutes against Kansas City and turned it over on downs.”
Beyond anecdotal arguments, the data backs Mahomes as superior. As cited in the video, he posted the second-best EPA per play in the playoffs for two straight years leading up to this past Super Bowl.
The Texas Tech alum also ranked among the best in high-leverage situations, third and fourth downs, “gotta-have-it” moments. Add to this, the fact that Kansas City led the league in 10+ play touchdown drives is truly a testament to Mahomes’ ability to sustain offense without relying on explosive weapons.
Given all of this, the idea that Patrick Mahomes should fall behind three quarterbacks with less postseason consistency, fewer playoff wins, and significantly more offensive help feels like a stretch to many.
While Chris Simms is certainly entitled to rank quarterbacks as he sees fit, it’s fair to question whether Patrick Mahomes—still the engine of one of the NFL’s most successful dynasties—should really be ranked the fourth-best. Because it’s hard not to think he still belongs right at the top, or at least in the top two.
