Jackson-Mahomes as magical a QB duel as NFL has ever seen
There have always been great quarterback matchups in the Super Bowl era of pro football, for more than half a century now. We had Tom Brady vs. Peyton Manning. We had John Elway vs. Brett Favre. There was a wonderful game once, at the place called Joe Robbie Stadium in those days, between Joe Montana and Dan Marino, after Montana had left the 49ers for the Chiefs. And we had Touchdown Tom Brady vs. Eli Manning, which wasn’t supposed to be a fair fight until Manning beat Brady’s team twice.
That’s just the short list. But there has never been more talent and athleticism and maybe even magic in the room than there will be in Baltimore when it is Patrick Mahomes against Lamar Jackson with a trip to a Super Bowl on the line. Maybe the key ingredient here is the magic, and the constant chance that one of them, in the next moment, is about to make a play that you have to see to believe.
Bill Parcells always said that when a game looks even, and this one looks even though the Chiefs are on the road again, bet the team that needs it more. Or maybe, for the sake of this conversation, the quarterback who needs it more. But it is impossible to draw that kind of distinction between Mahomes, who might be on his way to being the best quarterback of all time, and Jackson, who is about to win his second MVP award and has this shot at taking out the champ.
Mahomes is trying to get to his fourth Super Bowl, and give himself a shot at winning his third, at the age of 28. Again: It is about the same point in his career where Brady won his third, before going a decade without winning his fourth. So, yeah, he needs the game, even if it were being played on the moon. But Jackson, a streak of light on a football field, who is having the kind of running-throwing career that we thought Mike Vick might have when he first came along, knows that the bona fides for any star quarterback, no matter how dazzling his skills, are ultimately measured in titles.
This is the best chance he’s had at one, a game like this at home, even against the defending champions of the world. So there it is. Jackson is a year younger than Mahomes, having just turned 27. This is the AFC title game we get on Sunday, two players this young and talented and splendidly gifted going up against each other. I do honestly believe there has never been more sheer athleticism at their position in a January — or February — game like this, and that includes last Sunday’s matchup between Mahomes and Josh Allen. You start there, and then you factor in how tough these two quarterbacks are, how creative they are, their ability to throw on the run and make something out of nothing, and you see what the possibilities are.
Of course weather can affect a game like this, and mightily. Or an early turnover, or injury to a key player, or a crazy bounce of the ball. We expected so much when Mahomes went up against Brady in a Super Bowl, when it was the NFL version of Cy Young vs. Cy Old, which is what we once called a pitching matchup between Pedro Martinez and Roger Clemens a quarter-century ago in the baseball playoffs. But then nobody blocked for Mahomes, the Bucs chased him all the way back to the locker room, and Brady’s team won. It’s sports. Things happen, even in the biggest games.
But so often in the past, when it was star quarterbacks and sometimes legendary quarterbacks going up against each other at this time of year, they have mostly been throwers. Elway was an exception. Steve Young was an exception. But now here come Mahomes, who’s only ever played in AFC Championship games as a starter for the Chiefs, and Jackson.
Mahomes is a better pocket passer, even as Jackson’s game has improved in that area, and mightily. But how many times, in the most important moments of the most important games, have we seen Mahomes — even when hurt — make plays with his legs that helped change everything? Then there is Jackson. The last time he was ever slow in football is when he made that long, slow drop to the bottom of the first round of the NFL draft when he was coming out of Louisville. Now, when he has the ball in his hands and is escaping the rush again, or just running with it as part of a designed play, he is a streak of light.
There was one play last weekend against the Texans when he took off and went straight down the middle of the field and looked as fast as anybody in the league, Tyreek Hill or anybody.
If Mahomes is Magic Mahomes when he has the ball in his own hands, there is just as much magic, and mystery, in Jackson’s game. He just hasn’t made it to his sport’s biggest game yet. Now he has his chance, against somebody who has been there three times before.
The other day they asked Jackson about going up against Mahomes like this, in a setting like this, with stakes like these. His answer was merely terrific:
“I don’t like competing against him at all.”
But you know he does. Manning wanted Brady and Brady wanted Manning, even though the real matchup for them was against the other team’s defense. This is a concept as old as sports, the one about having to beat the best to be the best. That is the real game for Lamar on Sunday.
And guess what? Neither one of these quarterbacks knows how many chances they are going to get. Marino first went up against Montana in a Super Bowl, at Stanford, when Marino was in his second year in the league. Montana’s team won, Marino’s team lost, and that was the only Super Bowl Marino played in his life. Now Jackson gets this championship game in his own stadium and that is a dream opportunity, against the Chiefs or anybody else.
But it is the Chiefs. It is Mahomes, whose career has begun so spectacularly that you wonder how the Bengals clipped him and the Chiefs in an AFC championship game in Kansas City a few years ago. He has been that good when the money was on the table, and now there it is again.
You hope the game, and this matchup of brilliant young quarterbacks, delivers. You hope one of them has the ball in his hands at the end with a chance to get one more game, in Vegas, on Feb. 11. There have been quarterback matchups before in January. Never one with as much potential as this one.