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Bill Simmons: Time to press pause on ‘Mahomes GOAT’ over Tom Brady talk
"Can we [expletive] settle down now for five years with the Mahomes GOAT stuff? Please? Thank you.”
The Philadelphia Eagles hoisted the Lombardi Trophy in New Orleans on Sunday night.
But according to The Ringer founder and longtime Boston sports writer Bill Simmons, it was Tom Brady and the Patriots who might have been the true winners from Super Bowl LIX as the Kansas City Chiefs were dealt a lopsided 40-22 loss.
As the Chiefs vied to be the first team in NFL history to win three consecutive Super Bowls, whether the Patriots’ standing as the greatest dynasty in league history was being challenged emerged as a popular narrative.
Even if Mahomes and the Chiefs had ground the Eagles for the second time in three seasons, a victory in Super Bowl LIX would still have left Mahomes three rings short of Brady’s seven championships.
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But factoring in both Mahomes’ age (29) and the history involved with a three-peat, several pundits were ready to anoint the Chiefs’ QB as the greatest to ever play the game had KC won at the Superdome.
Of course, that discourse is set to quiet down now, especially given the manner in which Mahomes and the Chiefs were defeated by the Eagles on football’s highest stage.
“He was terrible,” Simmons said of Mahomes on his podcast Monday alongside Sal Iacono. “He was terrible from the first drive. I swear he must have had 10 terrible passes. I’m not counting what happened in the fourth quarter. The game was over. When the game mattered, he was the worst he’s ever played — by far.”
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Even though a quick glance at Mahomes’ final stat line from Super Bowl LIX (21-for-32, 257 yards, three touchdowns, two interceptions) might paint the picture of a flawed — but competitive — performance, most of those positive gains were made during garbage time.
The Chiefs trailed the Eagles, 24-0, at halftime, with Mahomes only completing 6-of-14 passes for 33 yards, zero touchdowns, and two interceptions during that first half.
His two ill-timed turnovers directly led to a pair of Eagles touchdowns, while Mahomes’ first-half passer rating of 10.7 was his lowest in any half as an NFL player.
“Your boy was giddy too,” Iacono told Simmons of Brady, who was calling Super Bowl LIX for Fox. “I mean, I don’t think he — I think he went like three minutes without talking, Brady. He’s just like giggling in the corner, good for him.”
While Brady and the Patriots came up short in three Super Bowl appearances, they were never dealt a lopsided loss to the same degree as Mahomes and the Chiefs’ two Super Bowl defeats.
In the Chiefs’ two losses in the Super Bowl to the (Brady-led) Buccaneers and Eagles, Kansas City has lost by a combined 40 points. Brady and the Patriots lost by a combined 15 points in their three losses to the Giants and Eagles, with the New England QB holding a fourth-quarter lead in all three of those matchups.
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While Mahomes’ resume at 29 years old already establishes him as one of the greatest QBs in league history, Simmons stressed that Sunday’s showing validated that there’s still a sizable gap between him and Brady — one that won’t be bridged any time soon.
“If it had been Mahomes — his version of “28-3” with Brady announcing, that would have been great,” Simmons said. “Instead, this is probably the best moment of Brady’s career since he retired, because it was a lot of ‘Mahomes, Mahomes, Mahomes. Is he the GOAT? I don’t know — If he gets his three-peat — Brady’s never done that.’
“And now he goes down with two Super Bowl blowout losses. Brady’s had zero. Brady lost three times in the Super Bowl, all one-score games where he had the ball on the last drive with a chance to steal the game. Never got blown out, and then he beat Mahomes twice. … Can we [expletive] settle down now for five years with the Mahomes GOAT stuff? Please? Thank you.”
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