Troy Aikman had a legendary NFL career, and when he was compared to Patrick Mahomes, the former Cowboys legend had a lot of thoughts that he didn’t hold back from sharing.
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Patrick Mahomes has had the most prolific start to a quarterbacking career that we’ve ever seen in NFL history. He’s only in his 5th season, but he’s achieved things quarterbacks dream of doing in much more time than that.
In his very first year as a full-time starter, Mahomes passed for 5,000+ yards and threw for 50 touchdowns. He joined Peyton Manning as the only two quarterbacks in history to do that.
Mahomes is averaging a ridiculous number of passing yards per game, a rate that would surprise most people. Given how well he’s started, there’s no telling how high Mahomes can climb.
He’s already on pace to surpass several legendary quarterbacks, and when comparisons were made against Troy Aikman, the former legend became defensive.
Patrick Mahomes stats after week 9:
2,605 yds, 21 TDs, 6 intPatrick Mahomes projected stats:
5,536 yds (NFL Rec) 45 TDs, 13 int#ChiefsKingdom pic.twitter.com/mhqVVUscVH— Julio 🇦🇷 (@ToneyTouchdown) November 8, 2022
Also Read: Did Tom Brady replace Troy Aikman at Fox? Why Did Troy Aikman Join ESPN?
Troy Aikman clapped back at Patrick Mahomes and Stephen A. Smith and Max Kellerman were cool with it
In 2019, stats were being compared because Mahomes was that incredible. In fact at that point, Mahomes had 60 touchdown passes in his career.
Aikman finished with 165 touchdown passes, so Mahomes had already reached more than 1/3 of Aikman’s touchdown total despite playing in less than 10% of the games Aikman had (165 to 20 at the time).
The Cowboys man fired back with a Tweet of his own to defuse the situation and place him on top.
iCYMI: Talk to me when when he has 33% of my Super Bowl Titles https://t.co/Ba8kjPRnDs
— Troy Aikman (@TroyAikman) September 24, 2019
Many people felt that Aikman was being petty and arrogant, but the crew at First Take had a different perspective. They felt like Aikman was fully within his rights to fire back.
After all, Aikman was commenting on the one task that he was put out to do, win Super Bowls. And until that point, Aikman had a massive leg up on Mahomes.
Additionally, the crew also mentioned how making stats comparisons like that was uncalled for as the two quarterbacks played in completely different eras. The passing game is much more robust now, and Aikman would have likely passed for bigger numbers if he played now.
Therefore, the only standard for comparison is Super Bowl wins.