While he is rightfully credited with winning three Super Bowls, Patrick Mahomes also receives the same amount, if not more, of criticism for his two losses. His failure at Super Bowl LIX continues to dominate conversations heading into the 2025 season. That said, Mahomes’ performance against Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Super Bowl LV wasn’t very inspiring either.
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According to NFL Hall of Famer Cris Carter, those Super Bowl stat sheets will be held against him forever. But the pride and joy of the Kansas City Chiefs is still more than capable of making the G.O.A.T. race a “close” one before it’s all said and done.
During a recent episode of Carter’s Fully Loaded podcast, the former Minnesota Viking analyzed the context of the situation. While he was more than willing to credit Brady for his ability to secure a 3-0 Super Bowl record at the beginning of his career, Carter added that “Brady had really only participated in one of those Super Bowls.”
In the eyes of Carter, Brady benefited from “great defenses that were underrated” and one of the best head coaches in NFL history, Bill Belichick.
“The only difference between Mahomes and Brady now is just Belichick winning a couple more three-point games, and Adam Vinatieri kicking field goals. Brady wasn’t on the field,” Carter said.
Carter also went as far as to suggest that Mahomes, despite throwing a game-altering pick-six right into the hands of Philadelphia’s Cooper DeJean, didn’t “…lay an egg in the Super Bowl.”
Ironically enough, the Kansas City signal caller has actually thrown a pick-six in each of his two Super Bowl losses. But this is of no concern to Carter.
What Carter does find to be problematic, however, is how the Chiefs “had him out there fighting and scrapping” in those Super Bowl losses. “He [Mahomes] had no chance… If my guys get whooped, it’s hard to impossible for me to play at my best.”
Even if Mahomes had an underwhelming supporting cast while competing against the likes of Jalen Hurts and Brady, he can at least find some solace in the fact that his former Super Bowl rival won’t be trashing him in the Fox Sports broadcasting booth on Sundays.
During a recent interview, Brady said that he is well aware that he needs to walk a fine line between being sympathetic toward Mahomes and being honest about the product that the Chiefs are currently fielding. Conflict of issues aside, Brady figures to be on the call for the majority of Mahomes’ games moving forward.
Fox Sports will be hoping to get the maximum value from Brady’s 10-year, $375-million contract. In what is essentially the football equivalent of having Michael Jordan at the commentary table for a LeBron James contest, the network may have finally managed to find the leg up on its competitors that it has been searching for the past five seasons of NFL coverage.
